PEASANT LIFE 



IN 



GERMANY. 



Miss Anna C. Johnson, 
Author of the " Iroquois," "Myrtle Wreath," etc., etc. 



FOURTH E DJLTI O N . 




WW YORK: 

CHARLES SORIBKER. 124 GRAND STREET, 

LONDON: SAMPSON, LOW, SON & CO. 

M DOOO LIX. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in tbe year 1868, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNEE 

In tbe Clsrk's Office of the District Court of tbe United States, for the Southern District of New York. 



W. H. TinhiiN-. Sttreotyper, G-or«k Rcssbli. & Co., Printers, 

Rem- of 4J & 45 Centre St.,'»r. Y. 01 Ueekman St., N. Y. 



/ 



3 



SAMUEL RICKER, 

" CONSUL-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, FOR THE HANSEATIG 
AND FREE CITIES OF THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION," 

THIS VOLUME 
IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, 
IN TESTIMONY OF THE GRATITUDE OF THE AUTHOR FOR THE PROTECTION AN1 
ASSISTANCE CORDIALLY AFFORDED IN ALL PLACES "WITHIN HIS JURISDIC- 
TION, AND FOR HIS COMMENDATORY INTRODUCTIONS TO OTHER CON- 
SULAR AGENTS, -WHICH SECURED FOR HER ALL THE OFFICIAL 
AND FRIENDLY AID SHE NEEDED UPON A DIFFICULT MISSION 
IN A STRANGE LAND. 



CONTENTS 



PAOB 

Introductory, .......9 



CHAPTER I. 

First Impressions — Going to Chnrch — Sunday Pic-Nic — Amusements — 
Manners and Customs, . • 34 

CHAPTER H. 
Unity, Liberty, and Slavery, . . 49 

CHAPTER HI. 
Aristocracy — Officials — Passports, . 61 

CHAPTER IV. 
Costumes— Feudal Oppression— Religion, ....... 73 

CHAPTER V. 
Military System and its Effects, 83 

CHAPTER VI. 

Rise and Decay of Feudalism — Growth of Free Cities — Annual Dinner of 
Merchants and Sea- Captains at Bremen, 97 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

PAcn 
Guilds and Trades, 115 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Farmers and Farming— Village Homes— Education, 127 

CHAPTER IX. 
Agriculture— Irrigation— Superstitions — Flax-Raising, . . .141 

CHAPTER X. 
Fairs— Housekeeping— Domestics — Art in Europe and America. . . 157 

CHAPTER XI. 
Valley of the Rhine— Commerce— Luther— Guttenberg, . . . .172 

CHAPTER XII. 

Cities of the Rhine— Legends and Superstitions, . . . . .186 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Vineyards— Culture of Wine, Flax, and Silk, 198 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Palatinate — The Vintage — St. Werner — The Jews — Nuremberg — 
Wine Drinking— Grape-Cure, 210 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Odenwald— Churches— Funerals — Balls— Smoking— Drinking— Want 
of Politeness — Immorality — Marriage and Betrothals, .... 221 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Odenwald— Tobacco Raising and Smoking— Black Bread— Costume* 
—Games— Legend of Emma and Eginhard— Wild Animals, . . 236 

V 



CONTENTS. Vll 

CHAPTER XVII. 

PAGE 

Washing— Sauerkraut — House Furniture— Housekeeping— Girls going to 
America— School System and Schools — Papers— Masters— Education 
of Girls, 252 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Division of Land— Taxes — Habits of Life— Brunnen— Village Life— Scene 
at the Brunnen— A Meeting and a Marriage, 266 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The Black Forest — Postillions — Farm-Houses — Food— "Women and Cows 
—Windmills— A German Vankee— Porcelain Stoves — A Mother, but 
not married — Braiding Straw— Clocks— The Tax-Gatherer — Inns — 
Boarding-Houses, 281 

CHAPTER XX. 
Agricultural Fairs— Costumes— Garden Festivals, 299 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Amusements — A Pastor's Welcome — A Village Raising — Marriage Con- 
tracts — Weddings — Gold and Silver Weddings — Birth-Days — Name- 
Days— Games, 311 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Costumes — Women working in the Field — Lodgings at an Inn — Kitchen 
Work — Recipe for preserving Fresh Fruit — Cider Making — Tiles — Carts 
— Wooden Utensils — Apple-Bee — Sausages — Food — Chimney-Sweeps 
—Titles— Etiquette of Calling— Betrothals, 351 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Amusements — Palmers — Shrines — Mariazelle — Maria Tafel — Black Lady 
of Altotting — St. Wenceslaus — Easter Monday in Vienna — Whitsuntide 

. 340 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

PAGE 

Amusements Continued — Observance of Sunday- -Change of Manners m 
the New World— Peasant Manners in Thuringia— Feast of the Grasko- 
nig, or Grass-king — Wedding Festivities — Costume — Universal Fond- 
ness for Sport— Inquisitiveness— Penuriousness, ..... 358 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Miners and Lace Weavers of Saxony— Farmers of Schleswig Holstein, 
of Westphalia, and Oldenburg, and of Northern Prussia— Supersti- 
tions — Amber Fisheries — Costumes — Dutch Settlers on the Vistula — 
St. Bartholomew's Day at Berlin — Pfingsten, 372 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Education in Germany— Invention— Artists — The German Element in the 
United States— Emigration— Picture of a German Family preparing to 
go to America, 386 

APPENDIX, 406 



PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

41 To Germany V " Yes, to Germany." " And do you intend 
to write a book — to add another to the catalogue of stupid 
details of travelers' experiences, telling how many times you 
lost your carpet-bag, how many lords, and dukes, and nobles 
you saw, and how many times they condescended to bow to 
you ; how far off you were permitted to stand to gaze at a 
princess, and how some stupid old baron permitted you to walk 
through his stables, provided you uncovered your head in the 
presence of his horses, and left not the dust of your republi- 
can feet on the threshold of his dog-kennel ?" 

Yes, indeed, we intend to write a book, though not after that 
fashion. We do not intend to make it a copy of guide-books, 
as those have done who write as you portray, taking verbatim 
descriptions of castles from Murray and Boediker ; talking 
of dinners in the palaces of dignitaries which they never 
ate ; going into ecstasies over cathedrals which they never 
entered, and enthusiastically expatiating upon pictures and 
marble figures, because they were executed by old masters, 
and which very likely they never saw. We intend to write 
a book, and you shall see that there are not only new things 

1* y 



10 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

to be seen under the sun, but new things to be said. We 
will describe the people — who have been passed by as if they 
were dogs, or worms to be trodden upon, because they bend 
their necks to the yoke of priuces. We will tell you how they 
live in the cottages, for into these we shall certainly find ad- 
mittance. 

" The peasantry 1" exclaims a fashionable young lady, 
" those stupid people, what can you tell about a blowzy old 
Fratj, making Sauerkraut V 

By this, we confess, our spirits were a little damped, but we 
still answered, " You shall see." 

Another exclaims, "Alone, what can you do traveling 
alone — and how are you to understand them ? You do not 
speak the language, and in no two villages do they speak the 
same language." 

Alas ! deeper and deeper did our heart sink at this 
"Alone," to be sure ; but that we were in this humiliating 
position did not make us fear or tremble. We only thought 
of " what the world would say." We were doing something 
unconventional, and might as well commit regicide. The lan- 
guage we did not know, but that we could learn. In spite of 
all this, we heard a voice, saying, "Go, and the Lord will 
prosper you." 

We came, dear reader, and if prosperity is any evidence 
that the Lord has been with us. we need not spend any more 
words to prove that we have done well, in departing from the 
beaten track of tourists, and departing from a certain conven- 
tional rule that would have doomed us to a life of idleness and 
uselessness, had we obeyed it, instead of obeying the voice of 
God in our soul. 

Yet it was with a depression upon our spirits, not to be told 



INTRODUCTORY. 11 

in words, that we found ourselves alone upon the deck of the 
great steamer, that bright, cloudless day, the 21st of March, 
185*7; and as one by one the cables are slipped, one by one the 
ropes are loosened, one by one the chains fall heavily, the anchor 
heaves and the good ship Hermann drops down the bay, we 
feel as if the chords of our heart were snapped, and every 
link that bound us to earth were severed, instead of a few 
threads torn asunder that connect us to our native land, and 
that will only be cemented all the stronger when we come back, 
with the love of home and friends and country increased a 
thousand-fold. 

Yet we were not long alone. It was a gallant ship with a 
gallant captain,* as ever sailed the seas. We had none of the 
ordinary "sea voyage" experience. The vessel was like a 
lady's parlor for neatness ; the discipline, we were told, was 
like that of a man-of-war, but so perfect we could not see any 
discipline at all. The company was as if the captain had in- 
vited a select few to spend a fortnight agreeably together, and 
all the way to Southampton was one long day of new and fresh 
delight. We enjoyed every moment the exhilaration which 
breathes in each word and line of Barry Cornwall's song : 

" The sea, the sea, the open sea! 
The blue, the fresh, the ever free !" 

being in all its variations a new world of beauty and glory 
and majesty. 

We have always heard of the sailor's love for his ship and 
the mighty deep, and learned, if not to understand it, at least 

* Captain Edward. Higgins. The ship has since passed into other hands, and he has 
left tee sfa. 



12 PEASANT LTFE IN GERMANY. 

to wonder at it, for not in a year, or any number of year?, had 
any cot upon the land so linked itself to our affections, or the 
communion of many months so bound our heart in holy sym- 
pathy and friendship, as these few days shut out from all the 
world beside, tossed in a frail bark upon the rolling waves. 

Bremen was our destined port ; and now came the pang, the 
sting for which there was no balm — a bitter cup which had in 
it no drop of sweetness. We learned for the first time the 
anguish of parting when we said good lye to ship and ship's 
companions, and found ourselves upon the little boat that was 
to take us lazily up the Weser. Not a word could we under- 
stand, to be sure, of the jargon that was jingling and grating 
upon our ears. " How can it be possible," we exclaimed, 
" when God made of one blood all nations under Heaven, 
that they can make themselves so different, not only in tongue 
and tint, but in all thought and action. In all that is within 
and all that is without, there is scarcely a human resemblance 
between the American and the German." 

The first feature of the land, upon which our eyes rest, tells 
us of the transition from the new world to the old — the little 
mud-walled cottages, over which the grass has grown till they 
look like green mounds dotting the plain upon which they 
stand. Even the green is not the light, fresh green of an 
American meadow, but darker, and the stems more thickly set 
upon the sod. How much heavier the little fishing smack and 
the great net of the fishermen. How strangely the quaint 
little boats dot the borders of the stream, and how stiff and 
grim frown these old walls as we near the city. What narrow, 
dingy, crime and poverty nestling-places are these old streets. 
Yes, we are in the old world, where antiquity is the pride and 
boast. 



INTRODUCTORY. 13 

Bremen is not renowned for art or for anything that attracts 
strangers to dwell long within its borders. Yet it is one of the 
most beautiful of German cities. After the French war, the 
ramparts were demolished, as they were also in Hamburg and 
Frankfort, and converted into beautiful promenades, for plea- 
sure-loving throngs. The ditch was widened and filled with 
water, which is often renewed and kept fresh by pumps which 
connect it with the river, and running, as it does, in a winding 
way through the centre of the town, affords -most delightful 
and refreshing retreats for those who will walk or rest at any 
hour of the day. 

Our first exclamation is, How beautiful ! And as we wander 
a.bout, whichever way we turn our eyes, there is something that 
strikingly evinces a love of that which gratifies the taste, and 
brings over the body and spirit a dreamy, languid sensuousness, 
instead of waking it up to thought and action. This is to be 
found and experienced everywhere, and to an American is pecu- 
liarly grateful, coming as he does from the excitement and 
whirl of the modern Babel, and wishing as he does for a little 
time to forget care and business, and revel in enjoyment. If we 
had traveled from city to city in this way, with no time or 
thought, or wish for anything but the beautiful, we should have 
returned as our countrymen do, to say, " Oh, that we could be 
like unto them I" 

But our mission led us also among the contrasts to all these 
things. Alas ! what a gulf between the prince and peasant 
— the palace and cottage ! We have seen both, and have 
only one predecessor in this new field of observation which we 
have chosen. Twenty years ago, Howitt dwelt three years in a 
German village, and wrote of the rural life of the people 
We have done the same, though upon a different plan, and pro 



14 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY 

fitting somewhat by his advice and experience, executed our 
task in a different way. We have dwelt a little while in many 
villages, instead of a long time in one, and having no house of 
our own, were obliged to dwell with them, night and day, and 
thus became initiated into their ways of thinking and living, as 
would be impossible in mere casual visits. Our readers will 
probably still wonder how we could learn all these things while 
the language was yet a sealed book. If they accompany us on 
the way, they will see that we were not only pleasantly, but 
conventionally attended — not a single mile did we go alone — 
spent not a day without the companionship that was both 
more agreeable and more profitable than that of any fashion- 
able lady, whose silks and satins and fastidious tastes would 
have made her an object of aversion to the honest Bauervolk, 
and among whom she would not have thought it possible to live 
a day. No lady or gentleman could accompany us upon such 
a tour, and only one who would write a book would make the 
tour herself. But we found no difficulty in obtaining at any 
time a young girl who could speak German and English; and a 
peasant girl, whose mother tongue is the dialect of the illite- 
rate, can better understand other dialects of the same class 
than one who speaks the language according to its grammatical 
construction. A young girl of this description could also 
obtain for me information which I could not obtain for myself, 
if I spoke every dialect, as she would immediately be admitted 
to their confidence. Other girls would tell her their secrets ; 
and, being in her company, they do not distrust me. One, as 
will be seen, made her luck in this way. Among the peasantry, 
when a girl has obtained a lover and husband, it is called, 
making her luck. She is settled for life. When a man is 
refused, he gets a basket instead of a mitten, as with us. But 



INTRODUCTORY. 15 

they add also, when accepted, he has a basket with a whole 
bottom. A great reproach it is, and very sheepish he looks, 
when it is whispered about, " he has had a basket without a 
bottom." 

Sometimes when this has happened to some luckless swain, 
he finds upon the door-handle, or under his window, when he 
comes forth in the morning, an old basket, the foundations of 
which are entirely gone. And far off stand a group of mis- 
chievous young men and maidens, to hoot, when in a fit of pas- 
sion he kicks it out of sight. A most unprepossessing specimen 
of humanity he must be who cannot find a mate in Deutchland* 
where to get married is, more than anywhere else, the one thing 
hoped and the one thing needed. 

As we said, our first and favorite companion made her luck, 
and we felt as if our own were lost forever. But the next, 
though entirely different, proved equally good and more intelli- 
gent. She left us for a convent, not to take the veil, but to 
educate herself for a teacher, whence we often have most 
amusing descriptions of the old monks and quaint little nuns, 
whose devoutness and sacrifices are to her only so many themes 
for merriment. " Oh, no," she says, " I will never be a nun ;" 
she likes the gay world too well, and "chatting with the 
beaux." 

Each change seemed at the time a calamity ; but we found 
it, on the whole, good, as we were thus furnished with a variety 
in them, and had the benefit of the observations of different 
minds. Their freshness and originality were to us a constant 
wonder and diversion ; and amidst the new things which they 
alone could understand and explain, we felt that they were 

* Pronounced as if spelt Doitchland ; we may often use the word, as it is the one 
universally heard for Germany, and has become very pleasant to our eara. 



16 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

the superior beings to whom we must look up. But in this old 
world so distinct is rank, and so impressed is every class with 
the rights and privileges of its own position, that no degree of 
familiarity, or inherent superiority, leads any one to presume. 
They are ever conscious of the line which separates them from 
bom ladies ; however lady-like themselves, expect only the privi- 
leges of servants. Yet we have met with no born ladies more 
truly noble, or more intelligent, or whose society we so much 
enjoyed. 

But we must not allow our king and castle-worshipping 
audience to suppose we have not " gazed with all the gazing 
town," at crowns and turrets. Eoyalty is not so exclusive in 
Germany as in France and England, and one may, in the course 
of the summer, see half of the German princes at watering 
places, in public gardens and galleries, where they go in and 
out, and live from day to day in the most unassuming manner. 
Our eyes have thus been gratified in beholding, in all their 
majesty, the King and Prince of Prussia, the Emperor of Aus- 
tria, the Emperor and Empress of all the Eussias, besides any 
number of grand dukes and inferior princes, and potentates 
without number. To their credit, we are able to say, they are 
not at all different from other people ; but we cannot tell what 
effect it might have had upon our judgment, had we been 
honored by a bow or an invitation to dine. When Mrs. Trol- 
lope was in America she saw nothing but vulgarity and filth ; 
in Germany she saw nothing but refinement and elegance ; 
never looked lower than a castle tower ; ate only at the tables 
of dignitaries, and traveled only in one grand cavalcade of 
rank and honor. We shall have to confess that we have had 
no such experience. We have traveled usually in third-class 
cars, according to the dictates of economy, and in order to see 



INTRODUCTORY. 17 

in every possible light the people whom we wished to describe, 
and often found that far richer people did the same, though 
they will probably not confess it to their friends or put it in a 
book. Yet the third class is not less respectable than the first, 
and the Bauerskute are not less courteous than the Vornehmen- 
leute (the nobility). 

Our pleasure has not been less than others, in exploring 
ruins, and visiting battle-fields. Stupid, indeed, must be the 
mind that does not revel amid all those scenes so rich in his- 
torical associations. But we must have been infinitely more 
ignorant than most tourists when we came among them, for it 
has taken months of study, in connection with constant and 
persevering observation, to enable us to understand or appre- 
ciate them at all. How those manage who see and know all 
Europe in six months, we are not able to comprehend. 

An English author says his countrymen and Americans have 
about as much appreciation of the fine arts as a New Zealander. 
For others we cannot say, but for ourselves, though capable of 
receiving the most exquisite pleasure from things of beauty, 
we should as soon think of employing our pen upon New Zea- 
land, which we never saw, as upon the canvas and marble which 
we still may be in danger of almost worshipping; and most true 
do we find it, that all pens have been employed in vain, as far 
as conveying any just idea of what they attempted to describe. 
We have ventured to say what, we doubt not, will shock a great 
number of ears polite, and what we might not have ventured 
to say, had we not found among all the host of authors who 
bewail our indifference on these subjects, and our want of en- 
couragement of this kind of talent, one to sustain us in a dif- 
ferent view. Our diary was quite filled, our reflections all 
made, and our book half finished before we came across the 



18 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

voluminous works of Laing, a Scotchman, occupying one of 
the highest offices of state, now three score years and ten, 
whose observations were made* after the manner of our own, and 
many of them so word for word what we had ourselves written, 
that we were almost afraid to let it stand as original. But with 
full credit for many hints that were new, much valuable infor- 
mation, and a profound philosophy to which neither sex nor 
age would allow us to pretend, we are not a little gratified to 
be countenanced by such authority. We have said, and repeat 
it here, that this excessive patronage of the fine arts and 
sensuous indulgence, obtained by continual contemplation of 
this species of beauty, is relic and evidence of barbarism rather 
than superior civilization. 

One of the young girls, who was long our companion, had 
lived in England three years, in a family of rank, and had ac- 
quired notions of refinement that perhaps amounted to fastidi- 
ousness. Before she went, she had been only among those in 
her own sphere of life, and knew not how those above her 
lived. We were constantly amused to hear her remarks upon 
the contrast in the manners of the people of the two countries^ 
who could be considered on a level and mingle in the same 
drawing-room society. 

" Oh," she exclaims, " these horrid dishes of sand and saw- 
dust in every corner !" 

" And do they not have those in England ?" 

"No ; what disgusting, barbarous things among decent 
people I" 

This led us to notice them more particularly, perhaps ; but in 
every saloon, from the highest to the lowest, in every palace or 
picture-gallery, through the whole length and breadth of the 
land, we found in the most conspicuous corner the dish of saw- 



INTRODUCTORY. 19 

dust, which is certainly a most incongruous bas-relief to a " Ma- 
donna," and reflects no holy light or softened shadow upon the 
" Transfiguration." 

At a watering-place we were beyond endurance annoyed by 
the staring. If resting in some quiet nook, a troop of men would 
pass along and keep upon us one uninterrupted gaze, looking 
back over the shoulder, after having passed on. 

" What are they who stare so ?" we ask. " Do they belong 
to the rank of gentlemen, who are guilty of such rude- 
ness ?" 

" Yes," she says, " in Germany it is always the gentlemen 
who stare ; in other countries it is the gentlemen who do 
not." 

Never, among the meanest and rudest in young America, 
did we see such impoliteness. Almost every day she would 
come in convulsed with laughter, because she had interrupted 
some gentleman at his observations through a key-hole, and in 
many rooms she found holes made with gimlets for the same 
purpose. She had been much in England with ladies at such 
places, and never once saw anything like it ; and we are sure 
every room at Saratoga and Newport may be inspected, with- 
out such a discovery. 

In England she lived in a noble family, as teacher of young 
children, where they kept thirty servants, and said she sat 
always at the table, and was in the drawing-room in the even- 
ing, introduced to all company, and treated as a young lady; 
but in the same position, in Germany, she would be a slave, 
and be treated like a cook.* 

On leaving a picture-gallery one day, we asked of the lady 

* For which we take her word, not knowing anything ourselves of the matter. 



20 PEASANT LIFE EST CfERMANT. 

who accompanied us, if young girls were in the habit of fre- 
quenting such places. 

" Why, yes ; why not ?" 

"We had a doubt about the expediency of familiarizing 
them with such exhibitions." 

" Oh, one never looks at such things," she replied. 

But what, then, is the use of them ? We thought wonderful 
works of art were for contemplation. What folly, to spend so 
much time and money to procure and place here what it is not 
considered decent to look at ! 

What the effect may be we are not quite sure ; but of this 
we have had many proofs — that the ladies who live in the 
habitual contemplation of what in America would be condemned 
as obscene, are not purified thereby. We have sat stupefied by 
amazement to hear a mother, whose daughters were just bud- 
ding into womanhood, talk of a liaison, without blushing, or 
thinking it was anything to blush for. She would even be 
quite willing her daughters should know it all. She hated her 
husband, and she loved her paramour ; therefore there was no 
sin in her infidelity. We might in some degree have been able 
to comprehend this, though not to pardon, if she had not been 
a mother. But what more did she need to fill her heart, to 
employ all her energies, and make her supremely happy, than 
those young trusting ones, who came to her every day for the 
well of affection which was to them life and joy ? Yet for 
them she had no love, for them she did not wish or care to live. 
When she could not revel in his caresses, there was nothing 
more for her in life. And this was the holy mother's love we 
hear so much about — a love which is thought to purify the 
most corrupt heart, and ennoble the most groveling spirit. 
Yet this same lady could make a little variation from conven- 



INTRODUCTORY. 21 

tional rules a subject of eloquent condemnation, and talk of 
her faith in God and unshaken reliance upon his providence 
and mercy in a way to seem a saint. 

We have been struck very often with the importance 
attached in different countries to conventionalities, affecting 
the freedom and deportment of women, and have found them 
require a course of conduct exactly opposite. In America, a 
woman cannot go to the opera or theatre without a gentleman 
— would not even be admitted to a respectable place. In 
Germany, if you go at an early hour, you will see the door 
surrounded by a crowd of ladies waiting to rush in the moment 
the lock is turned, and doing so in a manner scarcely less rude 
than the boys around the Bowery, in New York. A lady may 
go quite alone, or with a servant ; but on no occasion with a 
gentleman, unless he be brother, husband, or betrothed. In 
both these cases the reputation of the woman is forfeited by a 
departure from conventional rules, yet in neither case has real 
propriety anything to do with the matter. In Europe, a lady 
may travel anywhere, any length of time, with a servant only. 
But what real protection is a servant, in the consideration 
upon which society bases the necessity ? Not the least ; and 
European ladies are seen everywhere attended by troops of 
servants, and living in such a way as not even to screen their 
reputations. American ladies may come with their children, 
and a mother with grown up daughters is entirely safe from 
scandal at home. Yet such a one has been obliged to leave 
a respectable house, because her rooms were too much fre- 
quented by officers in gay uniform. Yet there is no pleasanter 
way for a lady to see Europe than to take up her abode in some 
eentral city of Germany, and Frankfort is the most central and 
most accessible, making from there excursions to the watering- 



22 PEASANT LIFE EST GERMANY. 

places, to Italy, to Switzerland, as opportunity offers, and as 
strength and leisure allow. She can see more of Europe, with 
less expense, in this way, than in any other ; and where there is 
a minister or consul at all fit for his duties, he can at any time 
provide her with escort, obtain her board in a pleasant family, 
and afford her all the aid she needs in business matters, till 
acquaintances and friends have been made that make her feel 
as much at home in one land as in another. How many we 
know who might thus enjoy a year or two of travel, who stay 
at home because they think a gentleman, or a party, and ten 
thousand dollars necessary to a European tour. Two ladies, 
in company, may go anywhere, in the most agreeable and 
pleasant way, without the slightest difficulty, provided they 
know enough of the language to ask for what they want. A 
quiet, refined, and dignified woman needs no other protection 
in these, days, and all the watching in the world never pre- 
served a wicked or a vulgar one from sin or shame. 

In this way we have traveled, and strewn our path with 
pleasant friendships and remembrances, experiencing very little 
that was disagreeable, and nothing to lead us to regret for a 
moment that we came. The skies of no land are ever cloudless; 
and the flowery walks of these luxuriant gardens are not quite 
free from thorns. 

Had we published our note-book verbatim, it would have 
made three folio volumes; but we have only culled here and 
there what seemed to us most likely to illustrate the character 
of the people, and be most interesting to those in our own 
country who had never been in this. We have not thought it 
necessary at any time to say at what hour we rose in the morn- 
ing, when we left one railroad station, or arrived at another ; 
how many carpet bags we took, or how many we lost. The 



INTRODUCTORY. 23 

trials and tribulations of travelers had some interest in the 
days of knight-errantry ; but in these prosy times of steam and 
lightning the experiences of all are too much alike for any 
amount of genius or Id esprit to hope for the reader's attention 
to one's personal adventures. To our success in what we really 
undertook to do the succeeding pages must testify. 

We may also add that we have not been a spy in the land. In 
any house we have entered, we have said frankly, we have come 
to study the manners and the customs of the people — to learn 
how you cook, how you wash, how you woo, and how you wed. 
All that you tell me I write and publish, and wish only the 
simple truth concerning the most simple every-day life. Ger- 
man housewives are so conscious of their celebrity, and so sure 
they excel all others in domestic virtues, that never once did 
we find the least hesitation in exhibiting to us garret and cel- 
lar, and initiating us into all the mysteries of Braten, Sujpjpe or 
Eingemachtcs* We were infinitely amused to see how ignorant 
they took us to be because we were American, and authoress 
besides. They have always heard that American ladies did 
nothing but lounge in rocking-chairs ; and when, after elabo- 
rately explaining to us the various operations of sweeping, dust- 
ing and cooking, all done by servants, we have drawn a picture 
of some poor editor's or professor's family in America, where a 
lady with more Latin, and Greek, and mathematics in her head 
than they ever dreamed of, and more accomplishments than 
they think it either proper or possible to attain, with perhaps 
one, and perhaps no servant, washes, and irons, and bakes, 
makes all her children's clothes, and provides good dinners for 
her husband, with her own hands, they have stared as if we had 
told them some monstrous story of giant or goblin ; and could 

* Roast, soup, and sweetmeats. 



24 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

in nowise credit that it was possible for a lady to do such 
work. And still more did they stare when they actually saw 
an American lady sew and knit, make her own dresses, and 
trim her own bonnets ; half the time clean her own room, be- 
cause the servants left it in no habitable condition ; and teach 
them to cook many things they never heard of before. 

They have the idea not only that ladies in America know 
nothing of great stacks of fine linen, but that they have no linen 
at all. They have heard that a marriage outfit consists of two 
night-gowns, four Hemden* three pairs of stockings, and twenty- 
four silk dresses ! We are afraid some of them do provide 
these things in this proportion; but, on the whole, an American 
lady's wardrobe is more complete than a German lady's. We 
have never seen in Germany the long robe ale nuit, now univer- 
sal among English, French, and American ladies. The peasan- 
try do not wear night-gowns or night-caps, though they wear 
white caps all day ; and the young ladies, when at their work, 
don the coquettish little Mutze. But the robe de nuit is a short 
jacket of thick corded stuff, gathered into a belt behind, which 
ties in front. If they are very nice, they have also a three-cor 
nered kerchief crossed over the bosom, and a coarse Nacht- 
hemd, made something like a gentleman's shirt. They pro- 
nounce the robe de nuit too warm, and very extravagant. They 
could not afford such fine dresses for night ; but in many cases 
we should have preferred to spend in this way the money which 
they devote to embroidery upon the bottom of their skirts and 
trimmings upon their street dresses. 

There may be some among our readers who will think we 
descend to very insignificant things, and feel it almost necessary 
to blush over some pictures we have drawn of " life among the 

* Chemise. 



INTRODUCTORY. 25 

lowly," though they would have no scruple in standing hours 
before pictures which conventional rules make it proper to see, 
and study, and talk about, but from which they should be 
prompted instinctively to turn away in disgust. 

There is nothing we so much wish to know as the daily life 
and habits of a people ; and the things which are disagreeable 
and painful, perhaps, to say, are those which most vividly por- 
tray the character. We have had no motive but to present 
what we saw, in a way to aid others in seeing what we have 
seen, and knowing what we have learned. If we had any preju- 
dice when we came to Germany it was in favor of this country, 
to the disparagement of our own. We expected to see ele- 
gance and refinement in the people beyond anything we had 
dreamed; and, as usual in such cases, our expectations have not 
been realized. The author who talks of the rawness of Ameri- 
can society in comparison with German, could not have had his 
judgment formed among the elite of Boston, and the gentry 
of New England, to excel which, in all that is cultivated and 
high-bred in mind and manner, we have seen nothing in Eu- 
rope ; and a very unnatural effect of causes it would be if the 
descendants of the families who settled in Massachusetts, Vir- 
ginia, and Maryland — the nobility of England — had all degene- 
rated into boors in a free country, where the means of im- 
provement are more abundant than in any other, and each is at 
liberty to make what he pleases of himself, with the very high- 
est incentives in the reward which is held out to all who be- 
come worthy. Besides which, every year sends among us the 
learned and accomplished of modern Europe. Is it to be sup- 
posed they immediately become clowns because they are on 
American soil ? 

We have endeavored to avoid the fault so common, of judg- 

2 



26 PEASANT LIFE IN" GERMANY. 

ing all by a few, and ascribing to any great number the follies or 
vices by which we may, in a few instances, have been annoyed. 
Infinitely amused we have been to see from what examples we 
are judged. A gentleman remarks that he is astonished at the 
custom of American gentlemen in keeping on their hats when 
they enter a room. We answer, that this is not the custom. 
Why he has scarcely ever seen a gentleman take off his hat. 
But where has he been to form his judgment ? He is a mer- 
chant, and has a large packing house, which is frequented by 
sea captains, and, perhaps, stewards, who enter on business, 
remaining only so long as business requires. But he was really 
happy to learn that there were gentlemen in America who knew 
enough to take off their hats on entering a saloon. We smiled 
as we thought of the honorable gentlemen of Harvard Univer- 
sity, who, we are quite sure, as far as manners are concerned, 
would not be out of place in Potsdam ! 

We remarked to a lady concerning an American gentleman, 
that he was very accomplished and high bred. " Very differ- 
ent, then, from most American gentlemen," she remarked. 
"Where had she seen any?" Why, there used to come a 
man to their house, who was engaged in the shipping business, 
who seemed a very clever, good sort of person, but not much 
of a gentleman ! This was the only American she had seen. 
What a liberal-minded woman ! But the universal charge is, 
" Americans think of nothing but money, money," and they 
have repeated it till they forget entirely what it imports. A 
young man remarks, that he has just received a letter from a 
friend in New York, who is not at all contented ; the people 
are so mercenary, he cannot find anything like friendship. 
We express our surprise in the utmost simplicity, remarking 
it is very strange, when there are more Germans there than 



INTRODUCTORY. 27 

there are in his native city, that they should all be so immersed 
in the greed of gain, that he cannot find one who has time or 
thought for anything else ! He does not again look up, or 
speak. For ourselves, we have never seen Grote and Kreutzer 
magnified into quite so much importance as among these very 
critics, and we have met one German who says among first 
class American merchants there is a high-toned principle, and 
sterling reliable honesty, he has never found in any other 
country, be it English, French, or German. Of this we can 
be no judge. 

In the same superficial way their judgment is formed con- 
cerning domestic life. Those who write, judge entirely by what 
they see in a few great hotels, which are filled with people 
who are in nowise the true representatives of any country. 
But American authors sometimes give very unjust impressions 
concerning their countrymen, and especially their country- 
women, because they have lived only in cities, and learn only 
the life of boarding-houses. With all due reverence, we are 
prompted also to say that gentlemen do not seem exactly 
qualified to describe domestic matters, and we cannot help 
thinking a man as much out of his sphere in the kitchen as a 
woman in the forum. Had we undertaken to write a history 
of the German Diet, we should expect it to be about as correct 
as a gentleman's history of the family life and housekeeping 
of his own or any other people. He would^iiever be admitted 
to the kitchen at all, and must have marvelous courage to ask 
an entrance to the garret or cellar, and most likely sleeps in 
a lodging-house, and eats at restaurants, seeing, therefore 
nothing of regular family routine, and learning nothing but 
what ladies tell him in the parlor. And one astonishes him, 
by saying she must leave the company to go and see to the 



28 PEASANT LIFE IN GEBMANY. 

dinner. If he had accompanied her, he probably would have 
found all she did was to ask how it was going on. An Ameri- 
can lady would probably have gone out upon some other pre- 
tence ; but there are not many families in New England where 
the ladies do not see to their dinners, and attend well to the 
ways of their household, it being quite as disgraceful not to do 
it as in Germany. 

Another instance that strikes a gentleman as evidence of 
excellent housekeeping, is that the ladies make the coffee them- 
selves, not being willing to trust it to a servant, and this is 
the reason why it is good, whilst in America it is never good. 
The reason it is good is, that it is made in a biggin, an article 
which is not so unusual here as there, though far from being 
unknown. The way the ladies make the coffee is this. The ser- 
vant burns or roasts it in the kitchen in a rotary tin or sheet-iron 
oven, which she turns constantly till it is finished. When it is well 
roasted it is almost impossible to make bad coffee of it. She 
then grinds it in a movable machine which she sets upon the 
table, or holds in her lap. Then with a little copper tea-kettle 
of water, over a little brass furnace of coals, she carries it to 
the parlor, arranges the coffee-cups, and retires. The biggin 
is something in the form of a garden watering-pot, of tin or 
earthen. Within is inserted a smaller pot with two strainers. 
The lady puts a bit of white blotting-paper over the upper 
strainer, on which the coffee, allowing a large table spoonful to 
each person, is then placed, and the water poured till the small 
tin is full. She then takes her work, or book, or continues her 
conversation till this has drained through, when more water 
is added. This is all done according to rule, and requires, no 
art and no labor. The apparatus stands on the table all the 
afternoon, and every one who calls is offered a cup of coffee. 



INTRODUCTORY. 29 

and there is never an hour when coffee is not welcome to a 
German the same as tobacco. 

The government prescribes the hours when windows must 
be washed, and door-steps swept, and if the Madcken lingers a 
moment beyond the time upon the last pane of glass, a police- 
man is seen to call before the day is out to demand the tine. 
This law is with reference to the comfort of those in the street, 
but it does not prohibit the woodsawyer from performing his 
task before every door in the city, which is the most provoking 
of all inconveniences. One must walk as if he were treading 
a herring-bone ; one moment in danger of the saw, and in 
another of a cart, at all hours of the day, and in the most fash- 
ionable promenade. 

There is not so much danger in saying of any custom, it is 
universal, in Germany, as in America. They have lived so long 
in the land, and the governments are so disposed to imitate each 
other in what concerns the people, that there is a great simi- 
larity in all things, which we shall be many years in attaining, 
with the constant influx from all nations with every possible 
variety of character, and a government that attempts scarcely 
the slightest control of individual action. They read of New 
York with its murders and rebellions, and think all America is 
in just that state, utterly unable to believe what we tell them 
of quiet old New England ; where there is not a policeman in 
hundreds of square miles, a crime scarcely heard of in half a 
century, and doors unlocked night and day. But when they 
talk to us of slavery, we are obliged to blush and hide our 
heads. Would that some ocean wave might wash it out for- 
ever ; and when they ask for our boasted freedom of speech 
amidst those disgraceful congressional rows, we know not what 
to say, except that those are by individuals, who ha^p no 



30 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

further power, and not by a king whose authority is unlim- 
ited. 

With all our efforts to prevent it, we cannot be sure we have 
not made mistakes, though we have set down nothing which 
we have not seen, heard, or which did not come to us upon 
authority we could see no reason for doubting. We have 
sometimes felt a little bitter envy for a people who owe so much 
to America, which they will never acknowledge, and to hear 
nothing but reproaches against a country towards which they 
should feel only gratitude. They give the poor peasant the 
alternative, America or starvation, and when he arrives in a 
land of plenty, profess to feel the greatest sympathy and inter- 
est in his welfare, really fearing he is not looked upon with the 
honor and consideration he deserves. Very proud they are of 
the amount and influence of the German element in our Repub- 
lic ; but it is only when they have increased and multiplied and 
prospered, as they always do, in other lands, that the peasantry 
are gratified with praise or affection from their own. 

That the language was at first a strange tongue was an 
affliction ; but necessity compels to strange exertion, and we were 
not content until we were able to hear from their own lips their 
story, though we had many amusing adventures in the mean- 
time. It happened to us once to be left for a day with only a 
village maiden, who could not speak a word of English; we tried 
to make her understand that we wanted two bunches of grapes, 
which after a long time she said she quite comprehended, and 
departed to bring them. What was our amazement to see her 
return in due time with two pint tumblers of hot gin punch at ten 
o'clock in the forenoon ? We began to fear greatly for our 
reputation even in a land where this beverage would not be so 
reprehensible as in our own. 



INTRODUCTORY. 31 

At another time, in a city, we were requested by a friend to 
call upon a German lady who had been in America, and whose 
name was Mrs. Weisman. We took the name and number and 
began our search. On asking in a grocery over which she 
was said to live, they knew no such person. At the opposite 
corner we saw two ladies at the window, and ventured in to 
ask if they could aid us. They said " Oh, yes ; and the maiden 
should show us the house." We were guided round two or 
three corners into a large court, and told to inquire within. 
We asked the first person we met if Frau Wiesman lived there, 
and she said yes, oben (above). We ascended one pair of 
stairs and at the top repeated the question to the maiden who 
appeared at the kitchen door to see who came, and she still 
answered oben ; so on we went, repeating the same at the next, 
still to hear, oben ; but consoling ourselves with the thought, 
that the roof of no German house reached quite to heaven. At 
the top, we met an old lady, who said " yes," to our question, and 
asked us in. Soon appeared a young girl, who asked, in order to 
be certain, whom we wished to see ; we still said Frau Wiesman. 
There was then some mysterious whispering, and they both went 
out, returning after a long absence to show us into another 
room. There we waited some time, when a gentleman entered 
and shut the door behind him. This is mysterious indeed, and 
we begin to think perilous. We say it is Frau Wiesman we 
wish to see, and he informs us that his wife is dead ! But he 
speaks English, and we are able to explain our position, and 
learn that the name has been given to us wrong ; the two little 
letters i and e have changed places for once to our great 
detriment. The name was Weisman, and when we went back 
to the grocery with this, it was not in vaiu. 

A few such experiences are the best spur to the acquirement 



32 PEASANT LIFE IN GEBMANY. 

of a language, and as we stop to listen to the mud-besmeared 
children in the street, over whose tongues and lips these hor- 
rible long angular words roll without choking, and hear the 
market women jabbering away in a speech, that seems to us 
like moving a mountain to attempt, we resolve to try, for what 
is possible to them must be possible to us. Our first reward 
was in reveling in the incomparable children's literature, in 
which Germany is so fruitful. It will be a good work when 
some one shall translate it, preserving its genuine spirit and 
simplicity, to take the place of the prosy stuff with which 
American children are obliged to be content. Our full reward 
is in talking with the people. We have learned to know them, 
and like them so well, that we consider it the best thing we can 
do for our country to encourage them to go. They are soon 
elevated by what they learn there, and there are many things 
we may learn of them. America has begun at the bottom — 
her glory is her government and the homes of her people. 
When she gets so far as to make the encouragement of art 
possible and proper, there will be for beauty and ornament a 
foundation which will present a tout ensemble without the incon- 
gruity which strikes one so painfully amid the tottering thrones 
and cheerless hovels of Europe. There is just now, a sub- 
scription throughout Germany, for the purpose of erecting a 
monument to Luther in that city, to commemorate his remon- 
strance against the unpalatable diet of Worms. A hundred 
thousand dollars have been subscribed, and the kings and 
princes are giving liberally. If the great reformer could speak, 
we are sure he would say, " Let the marble perish; but scatter 
the seeds of knowledge among the people." There came the 
other day a letter to the authorities, with a hundred dollars 
and these words : " For the monument at Worms, to Luther, 



INTRODUCTORY. 33 

the great straggler for truth, knowledge, and freedom — but 
whose efforts were in vain for the people. 

(Signed,) "A Jew, in Nuremberg." 

No marble is necessary to preserve the name of Luther, and 
though the work will employ an artist and a few workmen, it 
is not a productive industry, and only a few amoDg the rich 
and traveled can look upon the statue, however ennobling may 
be the sight ; we should say first, build up these worm-eaten 
cottages, and supply these poor with the bread of life, and the 
bread of knowledge. Who needs to be told that Guttenberg 
invented the printing-press, and Luther translated the Bible ? 
How useless to engrave names upon marble that are engraved 
upon the hearts of every living soul. What a miserable farce 
to do it — when the printed page of every book is so costly that 
not one in a hundred cottages is blessed with a ray of the light, 
which emanated from these glorious minds. A monument to 
Luther, generously encouraged by the king of Prussia, who does 
not allow his people, on pain of punishment and fine, to wor- 
ship in the simple manner which Luther thought meet ! A 
monument to Guttenberg, in a land where a poor colporteur is 
not allowed to pass the custom-house without being detained a 
day, perhaps a week, that the Government censor may inspect 
every line he distributes ! A bronze horse with a grim rider, 
to preserve the memory of some young chieftain is more con- 
sistent. But the best way to honor him who translated the 
Bible, and him who made it possible to print it, is to give to 
the people the fruits of their labors. 



CHAPTER I. 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS GOING TO CHURCH SUNDAY PIC-NIC 

AMUSEMENTS MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 

Our book will partake something of the character of our 
mind during the time we were gathering together the fragments 
of which it is composed. For many weeks we could do nothing 
but stare wildly around, so bewildered where all was new and 
strange, that we were not capable of rightly seeing anything, 
or comparing one thing with another. One tells us we must go 
here, and another tells us we must go there ; one we must see 
this, and another we must see that. And knowing nothing 
ourselves, we follow this advice, feeling all the time as if we 
were in an opiate dream, or perhaps gazing upon a diorama. 
We were still in the world and among human beings, but. saw 
them all in such different occupations and so differently ar- 
ranged, that we could hardly believe we had not been trans- 
ferred to the moon, or at least to some unknown planet. 

We must go to church, of course, and see how people 
worship God in a strange land, and enter one of these grand 
old cathedrals, founded by Charlemagne (it is marvelous how 
many there are in Germany boasting the same honor), with 
the richly-stained windows, and the great organ as large as a 
New England meeting-house. The service is Lutheran, and the 
clergymen of this denomination, though wearing gowns, perform 
their toilet at home instead of having a looking-glass and 

84 



GOING TO CHURCH. 35 

dressing-table behind the pulpit. They are seen walking 
through the streets in full canonicals, and preach, and sing, and 
pray, in the same dress. The women of the congregation do 
not seem to be governed at all by Paul's instructions in the 
matter of " proper attire," but sit in church with " uncovered 
heads," not seeming to think with the apostle, that " it is a 
shame," and the men stand, half of them, with their hats on, 
removing and replacing them to suit their convenience. 

We stare about, and think how funny ! ' The floors are 
uncarpeted, and the seats uncushioned ; and yet before our 
eyes are long rows of saints and beatified men, that we presume 
are rare and costly works of art, upon which we ought to gaze 
with profound admiration, but we have not yet learned this 
species of homage. 

The choir consists of some thirty or forty little boys and girls 
in uniform — the former in blue jackets, with bright yellow 
collar and cuffs ; and the latter in black gowns, with white, 
three-cornered kerchiefs crossed in front, and long white aprons. 
A pretty sight. Besides these, the whole congregation join in 
the singing. The sermon we cannot understand, except that it 
is about the blessedness of freedom. After this comes the 
holy communion, to partake of which all must be dressed 
in black, each one going to the altar to receive it at the cler- 
gyman's hands. 

A large portion of the congregation were soldiers in military 
array, present according to the requisitions of government. On 
leaving the church, they assemble upon the parade ground, and 
two hours are spent in the evolutions which perfect them in the 
science of killing as many people as possible with the least 
expense and trouble This is Sunday, and this a regular 
Sabbath exhibition. 



36 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

After dinner we are invited to ride ; and without definitely 
understanding where or for what purpose, except that it is in 
the country, where we wish especially to go, we accept the 
invitation. At three o'clock there comes to the door a big 
wagon, so long and broad that it will hold twenty people ; and 
as we descend to take our seat in it, we are greeted by a little 
group of merry-hearted maidens, and find it is an excursion. 
There are eight gentlemen and eight ladies, with an elderly 
lady to matronize, as there must always be on such an occa- 
sion in Germany. Our road is through a succession of green 
fields and luxuriant gardens, dotted by farmhouses and peasant 
cots, and is itself bordered the whole length of the way by the 
oak, and elm, and linden, till we reach an open Platz in a wood, 
where are tables and benches to rest and lunch. A little back 
is the domicile of the owner of this pleasant domain, and after 
walking about a little, we enter the great door, and find our- 
selves in the great hall of a well-to-do northern German farmer. 
It is so large that one is instantly reminded of an immense 
barn in New England, and is no more finished than many 
we have seen, but yet has a sort of baronial grandeur, and 
exhibits the same ideas of architecture as the palaces and 
castles, the most elegant of which are reached by halls and 
staircases of the rudest description. On one side are the stalls 
for the cows, whose horns we see above the sliding- board, 
which is raised and lowered as becomes necessary in feeding 
and cleaning them. They are munching their hay, and look in 
the thrifty condition of cows which are kept for the purpose 
of the greatest possible productiveness to the owner. On the 
other side of the hall, but not opening directly into it, are the 
pantries and storehouses for the household, at the end of which 
is the kitchen. It is very small for so big a house, and the 



SUNDAY ^IC-NIC. 37 

stove occupies the whole length of one side, being at least from 
fifteen to twenty feet in length, and bearing a little resemblance 
to the modern range, being only abuat two feet in height. The 
cooking utensils are arranged around the sides of the room, 
and, engaged in the preparation of the various boils, and bakes, 
and stews, are half a dozen women, looking in no respect diffe- 
rent from all women uuder the same circumstances — " hot and 
greasy and blowsy !" and we are reminded of the remark of 
the fashionable young lady, and begin to ask ourself what we 
are to say to interest our readers about a blowsy old Frau 
making Sauerkraut, or frying ham. But we will see. In one 
corner of the great hall, upon hooks fastened in the beams 
overhead, are some thirty or forty great hams, u hanging up to 
dry." In another corner, upon the' floor, is a ^^n-coop, and 
the roost for favorite fowls is oben (over). Yet there is an 
airy, healthful, cheerful look and flavor, which giv c s one the 
feeling of being in the midst of the utmost plenty and perfec- 
tion of comfort. In the storeroom are butter goMen-hued, 
cheese, pans of milk, great loaves of rye bread two feet long 
and half as thick. The eartkeiwvare is the common white of 
American kitchens, with not so great a variety of ai tides, as 
the number of dishes served on any occasion is by ro means 
so great as in a farmer's house in New England. 

But we have not yet seen half the house. Eu^uing the 
whole width, forming with the first-mentioned apartments a 
cross, is another hall, quite as spacious as the first, ^,nd more 
fjuished. There are comfortable-looking sofas and tables for 
convenience in winter and rainy days, and the whole Jength of 
the hall, doors opening into smaller rooms for sitting ?nd sleep- 
ing, with painted wooden chairs and little earthen Toaments 



38 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

apou the mantel-shelves and tables. All is clean and sweet, 
gastfrei (hospitable) as one need to wish. 

There is no public road within nearly half a mile, but here 
and there shady avenues leading to the highway ; and as far as 
we are able to walk in every direction, fields of oats, rye, and 
barley ; a large garden as neat as wax-work, where the rows 
of beets, onions, carrots, and cabbages stand i"n such juxta- 
position as would be considered death instead of life to them 
in America, and yet exhibiting such vigor and consciousness 
of their worth as we never saw in " garden sauce " before. 

Our party have come to enjoy themselves, where it is not 
necessary to dress or play the court lady ; and having taken a 
general view of the premises, we seat ourselves under a clump 
of spreading oaks, when a consultation is held concerning what 
shall be ordered for our refreshment. In consequence, appear 
directly six bottles of beer, eight tumblers of milk, and a pot 
of coffee with milk and sugar thereto. As often as twenty 
times a day, ever since we have been in Germany, we have 
found ourselves exclaiming, "how funny!" and here we add, 
what would our good friends in America say to such a sight as 
this ? 

When all have eaten and drunk they dispose themselves for 
amusement. The first play is something like what we remem- 
ber to have heard called tag, when a child ; each stands by a 
tree, and one in the centre will try to find himself a place as 
the others run from tree to tree, and they try to change places 
so quickly that it shall be impossible. Afterwards comes 
" blind Jacob." One being blinded and standing in the centre 
of a ring, endeavors to recognize the others, who keep moving- 
round to bewilder him as much as possible. When weary 
with play they take another glass of beer or cup of coffee, 



AMUSEMENTS. 39 

and then walk, during all the time so merry, so perfectly like 
children in their sport, that if our eyes were shut we should 
suppose they were from five to ten instead of from fifteen to 
twenty years of age. At other tables and in other openings 
of the wood are a dozen parties of the same or different de- 
scriptions, and the air is filled with the echoes of their happy 
voices. They are not rude ; there is no vulgar familiarity; 
they are only merry; the exuberance of their spirits, like the 
foam of the beer, as impossible to repress, and, as it seems to us, 
as harmless. There are also troops of children skipping and 
hopping and rolling on the grass, while swinging and see-sawing 
and various games employ the boys and girls. 

Before we go we have supper, which is not less fwnny than 
the lunch. Before each person is set a plate, knife and fork, and 
pewter spoon, the viands being a large dish piled with slices of 
raw ham, which is a favorite article of food in Germany, and which 
they eat cut in little junks and placed between slices of rye or 
black Bitterbrod. This we cannot swallow. But what is this 
in brown earthen pans, holding about two quarts, and given 
one to every two persons ? Bonny-clabber, covered with 
powdered sugar and cinnamon — a delicacy well known and duly 
appreciated in the southern States of America, but not at the 
North. Oh, yes ; we can relish this very well, provided our 
dish is shared with a relishable person. Each takes a table- 
spoon, and placing the pan between, they dip alternately and 
smack their lips as if it were custard, and we are quite 
willing to pronounce it very good. After this we drink a glass 
of fresh milk, then follows a dance on the green, in which the 
old lady joins, and we are ready to return to the city. On the 
way they sing, in a more softened strain, being weary and in- 
fluenced by the creeping shadows and the 



40 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

" Moon-beams' misty light." 

And at eleven we are again upon the rattliDg pavements, and 
among the dingy walls of the town. 

On the way we have noticed that the great hall in many 
houses is filled with dancers and crowded, while the smoke of 
cigars converts the atmosphere into poison, and beer is slopped 
all about. Yet the external arrangements indicate a taste and 
love of beauty such as with us is only seen around some gentle- 
man's villa. The trees, perhaps, will be placed to have the 
effect of pillars, wreathed with vines, and blooming with 
flowers. We have seen one where the house was entirely 
covered with bark, the portico supported by trees as they were 
cut from the forest, a long verandah and little booths here and 
there in the garden, in the same style, and the whole so varie- 
gated with green and gold and scarlet that one might think it 
the abode of fairies. What a desecration it seemed of such a 
place as we looked within. And it is this incongruity, this 
want of harmony at which we have marveled everywhere. 
We pass on, though not as quickly as our pen, and as we go 
farther south it becomes infinitely more surprising. 

Tn Hanover and Cassel, when we enter the doors of the 
people of rank, we can think of nothing but a livery stable. 
The ground-floor is earth, in a great open place like a shed ; 
the stairs are of rough boards, and when you get to the top of 
each flight, the first object is the water-closet, with no accessible 
water, and the next door is that of the kitchen, so arranged 
that we cannot understand how human beings can think of eat- 
ing and living there for a single day. The way tourists see all 
these towns is to leave their baggage at the depots, which are 
now the finest in the world, take a carriage and ride from one 
gallery or museum to another, drive through the kingly parks. 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 41 

looking in at the zoological gardens, visit the Wilhdmh Ilohe, 
which is a magnificent fountain in front of the palace of the 
Elector of Hesse, and only surpassed by that at Versailles, and, 
dazzled and bewildered by so much that is grand and all open 
to the public, they think — 

M How beautiful to dwell among princes." 

But whilst we are writing, there passes a little group in the 
street, that reminds us that there are others than princes amid 
all this glory. " We hear the voice of singing," and looking 
out, we see a company of boys arranged rank and file marching 
out of the city. When they are just without the gates, the 
foremost cries " halt]' 1 and turning around, he uncorks the bot- 
tle which he has before held high in the air, with a cotton 
bandanna tied to the neck for a flag, and drinks to the health 
of his companions. A glass is then passed from one to the 
other, and when all have drunk they sing another song and 
proceed on their way. The leader of the little band was a 
journeyman shoemaker, who had just finished his apprentice- 
ship, and now commenced his wanderings through all the father- 
land to perfect himself in his trade.* He cannot set up on his 
own account till he has passed through this experience, and 
when he goes forth, his brother apprentices accompany him a 
little while on the way. They try to make it a joyous occasion, 
and while they are merry with wine and singing, cheer the 
heart of the lone wanderer, who soon enough becomes sad in 
prospect of his long exile, poverty, and friendlessness, from 
which there is no escape. 

Bat with more pity do we look upon the women who come 

* The details concerning laws and customs in relation to mechanics will be given 
elsewhere. 



42 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

into town from the surrounding country, bent almost to the 
earth with their great packs ; the most forlorn, poverty-stricken 
looking beings we ever beheld. Their husbands and brothers 
are soldiers, those fine-dressed, smart-looking troops, of which 
the Prince of Hesse Cassel is so proud, though he is not kind 
enough to allow a soldier or officer to acquire any great degree 
of prosperity. If an officer is stationed, and of so high a. rank 
as to allow him to marry, and has the means, it has often hap- 
pened that when the prince passed his residence, and observed 
a nice garden, and an appearance of thrift and happiness, he 
has immediately changed his quarters, and for no reason than 
because his sour nature cannot bear to see others happy. 
Alas ! he has been soured by a guilty conscience, and should 
serve as a warning even to princes, that injustice and vice bring 
their own punishment. From his people we have never heard 
a word but " curses be upon his head," for only curses has he 
heaped upon theirs. 

Again, we ask ourselves, what are we to say about these 
woe-stricken women ? digging the earth, ploughing, hoeing and 
driving carts, reminding us of those of only a little darker hue 
that we have seen on southern plantations. Alas ! in some 
other respects they resembled them — in their deep degradation. 
One who has lived here long, and mingled with them in a way 
to know, says they are bought and sold every day, not at public 
but private auction, and the trifling sum for which they may 
be had, proves how wretched must be their poverty ; and it has 
come to our knowledge, that one had parted with all she pos- 
sessed, and set out for America. At the custom-house she was 
detained, under the pretence that her passport was not correct, 
or her trunk contained something contraband, and day after 
day put off, harassed, and insulted by the highest official of 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 43 

the government at that station, till there was nothing more for 
her, a helpless, friendless maiden, but to become the victim of 
the man of power, and instead of going to a land of freedom, 
to better and elevate her condition, to go down to death. We 
know the remainder of her story, but it is too dark for our 
pages. 

As we see them by the road-side, in the fields, and at the 
market, we can hardly believe they are women. More and 
more are we bewildered as we pass on. 

But here is at least a curious contrast to the preceding, in 
the same office, and perhaps, not less illustrative of the parental 
care of government ! It is the custom in many parts of Ger> 
many, after the wedding ceremony is over, for the brother of 
th£ bride to prepare a full trousseau, for a very different person- 
age, a very insignificant little creature, who it is hoped will 
soon be in want of it. A box of such paraphernalia was to be 
sent across the Prussian border, and because the articles were 
all new each must be paid for separately. So here, in a govern- 
ment office, on a great table, surrounded by government officials, 
are spread out such a variety of bibs and' tuckers, and of such 
rare beauty, as we have never before seen. Each little frock, 
apron, ruffle and band is taken up by the great rough hands, 
that one fears will annihilate them, and each recorded in a 
great book, which we presume goes to the inspection of the 
State Treasurer. Upon one article our own eyes are riveted, 
the christening dress, a robe some two yards in length and 
width, of the richest embroidery, lined with white satin, and 
ornamented with countless bows. What a beautiful and costly 
article for a baby ! "When the examination is finished, they 
are replaced, the box is nailed, the required seal and certificate 
given, and it goes on its way rejoicing. 



44 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY 

At the watering-places the peasantry are in their gala dresses, 
and in such employments that they keep fresh, aud bright, and 
gay ; and, had we seen them nowhere else, we might have 
received the impression that they were the handsomest and the 
happiest among the people. At the Brunnen they dip the 
water, and in the shops they sell the wares, and for these 
offices there must be great pains taken to select the fairest and 
the most attractive, for it is seldom we meet one whose cheeks 
are not blooming and whose eyes are not sparkling. 

At Homburg the spring is a bubbling fountain, like that of Con- 
gress Spring at Saratoga, and having nearly the same analysis. 
But all the arrangements are infinitely superior for the comfort of 
visitors. The platform upon which we stand is of red stone, very 
porous, arranged in mosaic. Those without are separated *from 
those within by an iron railing, painted green. The tumblers are 
of the beautiful Bohemian glass, of every variety of color, and 
arranged upon long, neatly painted and grooved benches, upon 
which also stands a tub of clean water in which they are rinsed 
every time they are used. Four, six, eight girls, according to 
the season, dip the water by taking three tumblers by the han- 
dles in each hand, and filling them without slopping, and sup- 
plying those in waiting so fast that there is no crowd and no 
jostling and impatience. Their dress is black, or dark grey, 
home-made woolen cloth, the bodice in many folds, and 
fitting closely, the skirt full, with innumerable little plaits, and 
reaching a little below the knee. The sleeve is short and nar- 
row, but below it comes the snow-white chemise, the fullness 
gathered into a band. The hair hangs in long braids down the 
back, fastened at the end by a clasp, but upon the top of the 
head is a little coquetish cap, upon the breast a gold or silver 
brooch, and high-heeled shoes upon the feet. One need not say 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 45 

that water, ever bright and sparkling water, is more refreshing 
from the hands of such dippers. They are to be met upon the 
piazzas of the hotels, in the walks, in all places where one may 
possibly need attention. To make beautiful and attractive all 
that is to meet the public eye is the rule here as elsewhere, and 
beautiful indeed are the grounds where the public congregate. 
After dinner, all the world comes forth in full dress to prome- 
nade in the park, where there are seats for two or three thou- 
sand people, a band in full play, verandahs, shady walks, cozy 
nooks, and every possible convenience for health, pleasure, and 
comfort. Here are little tables upon which coffee, wine, and 
creams are served, instead of retiring to the hotels, to eat in 
crowded rooms ; and the taste with which little mounds are 
covered with flowers, and a circular platz in the greensward 
bordered with roses, pyramids wreathed with vines, old walls 
made new, and new walls made old with creeping ivy, bids one 
marvel at every step, and marvel still more when they see the 
simplicity aud rudeness of the daily home-life of these same 
people. 

Farther south, at Wiesbaden, Baden, Wilbad, Carlsbad, and 
Gastein, we see the peasants in a greater variety of costume, 
as they come from many different districts, with what they make 
themselves, or to sell what others have made; and behind the 
rows of glass cases, extending for half a mile along the piazzas, 
they are standing, their forms in bright colors that can be seen 
afar off, and their faces in bright smiles that tempt all who 
come near to linger, and often, perhaps, to buy what they take 
only to please the charmer. It is related that, not half a cen- 
tury since, a margrave of Baden met in his walks a peasant girl 
selling fruit, whose marvelous beauty was like enchantment, 
and to whom the promises and flatteries of a prince proved 



46 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

irresistible. In a neighboring city may be seen the castle 
which he built for her, surrounded by the beautiful estate 
which he gave her, and where, with the titles which he 
bestowed, she lived like a princess, the mistress of his affections 
and partaker of all he possessed that he was free to give. How 
far these made her happy we do not know, but during his life 
she experienced no diminution of his love. 

Graceful and elegant as is Parisian costume, there seems 
to be something peculiarly becoming and attractive in these 
quaint relics of the olden time that makes one almost wish to 
adopt it ; yet, were it universal, it might lose its charm. But 
true it is that the present mode must be rich and elegant, in 
order to be beautiful, and upon those who can only afford in a 
slight degree to follow the fashion, it is almost hideous. 

It is a proverb among the peasantry that " all should be 
homespun and home made which the Bauermann wears." It is 
observable, also, that more sober colors obtain in the north 
than in the south of Germany, though by some this is said to 
mark the difference between the Protestant and Catholic. We 
are inclined to think it is the climate only, as bright colors are 
again favorites in Norway and Sweden, and the temperate 
zone seems to betoken not only softened hues, but freedom from 
extremes in all things. 

When a peculiar dress has been worn for centuries by a peo- 
ple living in the same valleys and roaming the same hills, it 
gives a character to them and their country, and clothes each 
with an interest without which we might scarcely remember to 
distinguish them. The Tyrolese once seen among his moun- 
tains is never forgotten — his leather small-clothes and long 
stockings, his broad girdle and suspenders over the bright red 
vest, the short jacket and large round hat, with wide ribbon ; or, 



MANNERS AND CTJSTOMS. 47 

deep in some valley, the green or yellow straw hat, green vest 
and dazzling white shirt-sleeves, black neckerchief, and blue 
stockings ; or, upon another mountain, the high sugarloaf- 
crowned hat, the short, full coat, dark vest, and wide leathern 
girdle, ornamented with feathers. There are a manliness, a 
stateliness, and courtly dignity about the genuine Tyrolese of the 
mountain that are seen among no other German peasantry, and 
there is a true nobility of character to correspond. 

A troop of Bohemian girls among the shadows of the forest 
is still more picturesque; their skirts of the brightest carmine 
red, reaching a little below the knee, not to conceal the snowy 
stocking and silver-buckled shoe. Around their head is a turban 
of one bright or many colors, leaving unconfined only a few 
plaits of hair upon each temple. The little jacket reaches not 
quite to the hips, and wide open in front and low in the neck, 
to allow the snowy chemise to show to full advantage, coming, 
as it does, in full gathers to the neck, where it is fastened by a 
bright red ribbon or silk handkerchief. Beneath the jacket is 
a bodice covering only a small part of the back and bosom, 
but richly ornamented. Their lovers are in black leathern 
small clothes, and white stockings, or blue stockings and half 
boots, a red, or blue, or yellow silk vest, and bright carmine 
neckerchief. Before they are bent and browned by toil, 
there is something in their movements of the Eastern Princess 
and the beauty of the heroine of Lalla Rookh. There are a 
softness of voice and litheness of limb, that tell us their 
fathers were wanderers in another land, where they toiled not 
neither did they spin, and no degree of cold or hardship for 
centuries has destroyed their sportive gaiety, nor the fawn-like 
grace which characterizes the daughters of sunny climes. 

But we are not content with this superficial and desultory 



48 PEASANT LIFE EST GERMANY. 

manner of observation and reflection. We must enter the 
homes and get at the hearts of the people. We must glance 
back a little through the vista of the past, and if there is any- 
thing to tell us, learn something of the whys and wherefores 
of all these strange things. We cannot think our readers will 
be unwilling to accompany us for a little time, as ours only will 
be the labor, and to them the fruit, and as flowery as possible 
we will make the thorny path of knowledge 1 



CHAPTER II. 

UNITY, LIBERTY, AND SLAVERY. 

Contemporary with Charlemagne, who was the first king to 
be entitled " His Majesty," were Alfred the Great of England, 
Harold Haarfager of Norway, Eric of Sweden, and Gorm of 
Denmark, whose lives were devoted to accomplishing the same 
end — that of reducing a hundred petty kingdoms to one, and 
extending law, religion, and the protection of one great power 
over the whole — to make of many small and weak principal- 
ities one great nation, united in all interests of war and 
peace. 

With all the others this plan was successful, and the king- 
doms they founded, or rather the nations they formed, remain 
to this day, cemented only the more strongly by centuries of 
mutual defence of the same soil, rights and privileges. But 
that of Charlemagne fell asunder almost as soon as it was re- 
leased from his grasp, and there has never been found a tie that 
could unite together the different states of Germany in perma- 
nent brotherhood. While having the same origin, and speak- 
ing the same language, and lying contiguously, they are as dis- 
tinct and almost as antagonistical as France and Russia. To 
unite them as one kingdom, or after the manner of America, 
by a federal constitution, has been the dream of poets — the 
policy of statesmen, and the attempt of all, in vain. 

3 49 



50 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

We see in all the German States, among a great mass of 
the people, the love of liberty and restlessness in bonds, which 
characterizes all northern nations ; but though there are revo- 
lutions and valiant struggles, after a little while they settle 
back into the old order of things, and dream on as before. 
There is lacking some essential element of unity, either in them- 
selves as a people, or the physical construction of the country, 
and the nature of this element has been for half a century the 
speculation of philosophers and politicians, without resulting 
in any conclusion that promises peace to poor turbulent Ger- 
many. 

But why should there be now and then a free city, and here 
and there a little strip or tract of land, where the people have 
attained to a measure of freedom, while those living upon 
another strip or tract, not fifty miles distant, remain for cen- 
turies in bonds. We have found in the " Notes of a Tra- 
veler " * many curious speculations upon this as well as 
other subjects, and as his reasonings and inferences seem also 
plausible, as well as interesting, we shall avail ourselves of 
them. 

" Liberty," says the author, " will be found, however op- 
pressed, to sit in some shape upon the sea-side and river bank." 
And as we look around, we find these free states and cities lift- 
ing up their heads where the sea, or the lake, or the river will 
aid them in bidding defiance to invaders. Upon the northern 
coast we do not find the traces of the feudal castles or feudal 
institutions that are scattered over all the hills and valleys of 
the interior. Neither do we find there relics which tell of 
the Roman legions — the conquering army of Julius Caesar. 
If we look along upon the banks of the rivers that empty into 

* By Samuel Laing. 



UNITY, LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. 51 

the North Sea and the Baltic, we see institutions and results of 
industry that betoken a different people from those further 
south. A great proportion of the land was once sand, and 
mud, and marshes, yielding nothing, and fit for nothing, till 
drained and renewed. To accomplish this required not only 
energy and persevering toil, but interest and enthusiasm in the 
work, such as men will not feel unless it is for themselves. If 
they could look forward to a sure reward in land which was to 
be theirs and their children's, no expenditure was too great of 
time, or strength, or money ; but slaves would not toil thus for 
a master. Those who accomplished these things must have 
been lords of the soil, as we know they were. On the sea-coast 
of Holland, Flanders, and Friesland, and about the mouths of 
the rivers which water these countries — the Scheldt, Maase, 
Rhine, Ems, Weser, Elbe, and Eyder, the land has from earliest 
times been owned by peasant proprietors, instead of a few 
lords and barons, to whom the people were subject ; and in no 
other way could these coasts have been defended but by the 
owners of the soil. 

The little spot called Angeln, lying between the North Sea 
and the Baltic, the river Eyder, and the muddy Schley, was the 
home of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, and by many said to be 
the birth-place of the freedom of the world. They were almost 
surrounded by water, and were necessarily a seafaring people, 
with a life that requires and creates in those who follow it pe- 
culiar virtues — courage, boldness, self-reliance, energy, and in- 
dependence. 

But England was also an island ; and the ancient Britons 
were a brave and fearless race, whom the Romans had never 
succeeded in subjugating ; and it is not at all proved that they 
yielded to the little band of adventurers who came to them from 



52 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

across the Channel. And if they did they were too few to peo- 
ple the whole island ; and there is no record of their having 
brought with them their wives and children. They must have 
incorporated themselves with the inhabitants they found there; 
and when afterwards they were themselves subdued by the 
Danes, and then by the Normans, there followed tht, same re- 
sult. So that those who would claim to be kin of the liberty- 
loving children of England and America, because they are born 
on the same side of the Channel as that little band of Saxons, 
may still lack some very important ingredients to give them 
the same combination of virtues. Neither English nor Ameri- 
can blood is all Saxon. And brave and fearless conquerers as 
they were, the Danes and the Normans were not less so ; and 
there must be a mingling of the blood of four of these indom- 
itable races in the veins of all the sons of England, after the 
tenth century. 

Yet those who are born on the same side of the Chanuel ex- 
hibit natures as different as if mountains and seas divided them. 
Those of the same language are not always the same people ; 
for while this is retained, other circumstances may so modify 
and change them, that there is no resemblance or bond of 
sympathy, as we often see happen in members of the same 
family. 

The different lives which those live upon the coast have made 
them a different people from those in the interior. They are 
independent and self-reliant where the others are almost abject. 
Under whatever form of government they have lived, those at 
the north have always retained the right of managing their own 
private and social affairs. In Schleswig and Holstein, in the 
districts of Eyderstad and Ditmersh, though belonging to the 
autocratic government of Denmark, the people choose their 



FJOTTY, LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. 53 

own inferior officers, and submit to no dictation in matters 
which concern their interest alone ; and only one estate is held 
by noblemen in the whole tract from the Eyder to the Elbe. 
In a few other districts in Germany the land has been always 
held by peasant proprietors. In Westphalia, in Denmark, 
Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Tyrol, Lombardy, and Tuscany ; 
and in all these States the whole nation is as different from 
those which have been ruled by feudal tyrants, as.any nations 
whose languages have not a single word in common. 

The picturesque part of the Rhine, with its castle-crowned 
hills, lies between Mayence and Cologne ; and here, in every 
valley and upon every green slope, we find traces of the Roman 
invasion, as well as the strongholds of feudal lords ; and these 
are seen, in every place, the one to have followed the other. 
The Romans could not subject the seafaring men of the north, 
and barons could not convert them into serfs. 

We find also the language as much affected as the habits of 
the people by their invaders ; and in Holland, Friesland, and 
all the country bordering on the coast and the estuaries, called 
" Lower Germany," there are no Latinisms to betray their subju- 
gation, no innovations upon their strong mother tongue. We 
often hear " low Dutch " and " low German " spoken of with great 
contempt ; and if being different from " high German" entitles 
them to reproach, they certainly deserve it. The language of 
literature can scarcely be understood by those who know only 
the language of conversation, and vice versa. To understand 
German, oue must speak twenty languages. Latin was the 
language of the Church and all literature, from the fourth 
century to the Reformation, and engrafted its peculiarities upon 
the languages of \he people among whom the Romans obtained 
any permanent footing. . "Low German" and Dutch, and the 



54 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

dialect of many districts, have not the distinction of cases and 
genders in nouns and articles, and many other peculiarities 
which characterize the language of books, and that used by 
educated people. We have often wondered what could be the 
standard of "pure German;" for the people of no city or 
town will allow that the people of any other city or totvn 
speak " pure G-erman f those being only two hours' distant 
from each other pretend not to be able to understand what 
the others say, they use so bad German. 

To own the land, " be lord of the soil " upon which he walks 
and sleeps, seems to be the universal desire of man, and when 
the choice is given him, he will prefer to be poor upon the 
land he calls his own, than rich upon that owned by another. 
Many of the great convulsions in the old world, have been to 
abolish serfdom, and give to the peasant a right in a bit of 
earth, however small. All over Europe, except in Great 
Britain, this great change has been, for the last half century, 
gradually coming about. In France, this was the cause of 
the Revolution, and in Prussia, the king granted voluntarily 
what was demanded in vain of the Bourbons, and what the 
people, therefore, took by force. Yet the quiet revolutiou_pf 
Prussia was in consequence of the bloody revolution of France. 

When Bonaparte swept over the land, there was expe- 
rienced the want of the unanimity and enthusiasm among the 
masses, necessary to any efficient resistance and defence. 
Baron Stein, who was then prime minister of Frederick William 
III , suggested that if the people owned the soil they would 
more willingly defend it, and to save it from being . trampled 
by a French army it must be done at any sacrifice. So it was 
decreed, and that which had cost France millions of treasure 
and rivers of blood, was accomplished in Prussia and other 



UNITY, LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. 55 

German States by the simple mandate of the king, and this 
was his reward — the enthusiasm of the fatherland awoke, and 
the peasantry went forth as one man to drive the invaders 
across the border. But when the great occasion which called 
them out was passed, they were no longer a united people, and 
felt no more interest in their neighbors than in those of any 
other name and country. Each returned to his home a unit ; 
glorying, perhaps, in deliverance from a foreign foe and rejoic- 
ing to be free from foreign iuvasion, but for all civil purposes 
preferring to stand alone. (See Appendix A.) 

The first step towards giving freedom to the German serf, 
was taken in 180*1, and the first edict dated October 9th ; but 
not till 1810 was their freedom secured, and not till 1821 
was every vestige of this ignominious bondage removed. 

Under the feudal " system," the land was possessed by a 
class of nobles who held the peasants on their estates as serfs, 
or leibeigen people. The peasant worked every day, or a 
certain number of days every week, on the farm of the pro- 
prietor, and had a hut to live in, and a spot of land to culti- 
vate for his own subsistence in spare hours. Another class of 
peasants, a little above these, held a larger occupancy of land, 
for which they paid certain fixed services, of carts, horses, 
and ploughs, to the proprietor, and certain payments in the 
crops they raised. These payments being of old standing, 
and fixed by usage at the highest rate to which they could 
safely or profitably be raised, were of the nature of quit-rents, 
or free duties, though not in general established by writings or 
charters. 

There were tacksmen or middlemen, who took on lease a 
district or barony, with its village and peasants, from the noble 
or proprietor, paid him a money renjt, and gathered in, and 



56' PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

turned to account the labor, services, payments, and whatever 
they could make out of the peasantry leased to them, and 
farmed the demesne lands of the estate with the labor of the 
serf and services of the other peasants. The same system 
existed in the north of Scotland, until a late period. 

The nobles alone, in the greater part of Germany, could 
hold and purchase land that was free from such servitudes. 
The peasant holdings, or feud lands, held under services, often 
of a personal and even a degrading kind, were the only estates 
or landed properties that a capitalist not born noble could 
purchase or hold. The nobles also were exempt from all taxes, 
unless a personal tax, called a knight's horse, fixed at 48 tha- 
lers, and they were exempt from military service in person 
after standing armies were substituted for feudal services in 
the field. They had a monopoly of all the military ranks of 
officers in the army, and of all civil offices in any department 
of state. 

There was a baronial court, a baronial judge, a baronial 
prison on the estate to incarcerate the peasants, and a bailiff 
to flog them for neglect of work, or other baronial offences. 
The cottages of the slaves were on the outskirts of the estate, 
and out of the little crops they raised, they paid tithes and 
dues to the minister, the surgeon and the schoolmaster, and tc 
the barony or local judge who resided on the estate. 

But the feudal lord was obliged to support his serfs, in case 
of destitution by flood, or fire, or failure of crops, and other 
calamities, and to provide medical assistance and medicines in 
cases of sickness. They were thus sure of a subsistence from 
the soil they tilled, and no peasant could remove from the 
estate to which he belonged without leave from his lord. 

If a serf deserted, he was brought back by the military, 



UNITY, LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. 57 

who patrolled all the roads, for the purpose of preventing the 
escape- of the peasants into the free towns, Hamburg, Liibeck, 
and Frankfort, where they were secure after a year and a 
day's residence. Their punishment as deserters was imprison- 
ment, and to be fed on black bread and water in the black hole, 
which existed on every baronial estate, and flogged. This 
was the system in all Prussia until the nineteenth century, 
and existed also in Holstein, Schleswig, Hanover, Brunswick, 
and all round Hamburg and Liibeck. (Sec Appendix B.) 

It could not be expected that people would give their lives 
with any great enthusiasm to the support of such a system as 
this, especially when called to fight republican armies, that 
promised liberty, and all manner of untold blessings. There 
was nothing for them to be attached to — nothing for them to 
defend. Those to whom they belonged, and to whom they 
might have become attached, often residing in cities, retiring 
to their estates only for a few weeks, and taking no interest 
in their people except to make of them constant demands for 
money, which they found it difficult to satisfy. If they must 
fight, there must be held out to them some inducement. 

The first step towards bettering their condition, was to 
secure to the feud-holding peasantry the possession of their 
lands as long as they paid the rents, thus giving them a legal 
right to them. The next step was to include the serfs who 
lived on the outskirts of the land, and paid for the use of their 
patches in daily labor; and at last came the final measure that 
they should be absolute proprietors of their several holdings and 
patches, upon conditions that made it almost a free gift to all. 
The other States soon followed the example of Prussia, and 
thus came this multitude of small proprietors and little patch- 
work fields we see through all German) 

3* 



58 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

Henceforth birth conferred no privileges, and at a single 
blow, those who had for centuries considered themselves a supe- 
rior class, born to rights and honors, were leveled to the rank 
of those whom they had called slaves, had commanded, and 
perhaps flogged. It was for the one a great height from which 
to fall, and for the other a great depth from which to rise, and 
a people debased by ages of serfdom, could not in a day or year 
become intelligent and fitted for their new position ; and no 
edict of king or emperor could destroy the feeling in the heart 
of the noble, which ages of prestige and homage had nourished, 
that he was by nature a higher order of being than those whom 
he had held subject. Names could be blotted out, ranks and 
titles obliterated, but cordial feelings of equality could not in 
an instant arise between those who had been so long separated 
by the great gulf which exists between master and slave. Yet 
it was a measure originating in a desire to promote the best 
good of all, and it is not strange that mistakes should be made 
in the details of a great revolution, not the less a revolution, 
because it was brought about by a king, instead of people, and 
accomplished without civil war. 

It was considered a great infringement of the rights of pro- 
perty, that the feudal proprietor should thus summarily be 
deprived of services which had been looked on in the light of 
property, and no compensation be allowed, and that lands, the 
rent of which had been his wealth, should be " sold or otherwise 
disposed of," without permitting him a voice in the matter. It 
was taking from him a right he had enjoyed undisputed a thou- 
sand years, and it is not easy to see how a king could consider 
himself entitled to abolish a privilege as well established as his 
claim to the throne. Both originated about the same time, or 
if either could claim precedence in time, the feudal lord had 



UNITY, LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. 59 

lecidedly the advantage, and both originated in the same way 
6y assumption, and the right of the strongest, and in Prussia 
• especially a sceptre had been but a very little while in the 
hands of her kings. 

The nobility no longer having the consequence which great 
landed possessions conferred upon them, and depending upon 
official and military offices for support, lost their influence, and 
indeed are no longer a nobility in the land. Those who retain 
the titles have nothing to sustain them, and the little appendage 
of de or von commands very little extra respect. 

In France, the people were also given a representative gov- 
ernment, which calls them to a new sphere of action, and gradu- 
ally educates them for a higher position. People will not 
instruct themselves in that which does not concern them, and 
cannot possibly take an interest which will keep their minds 
awake, and make them intelligent, thinking beings, in affairs 
which require or allow no action. 

Prussia has not yet given the people the privilege of any voice 
in the government. The king is very nearly as much of an 
autocrat as the Czar of Russia. The serfs were emancipated, 
and feel that the soil is their own, but it is still so loaded with 
taxes, and their freedom of motion is so curtailed, and the free- 
dom of speech so forbidden, the new governmental machinery 
is so expensive, and their toil to meet all its demands so 
oppressive, that their condition is very little improved by what, 
it would seem, must be so great a blessing. They cannot 
choose the village schoolmaster who is to teach their children, 
nor the clergyman who is to instruct them in religion ; and 
every officer necessary in the most trifling local affairs of the vil- 
age, is appointed by government. They are taught to read, and 



60 PEASANT LIFE TN GEEMANT. 

punished if they will not learn to read, by the same government 
that afterwards punishes them if they listen to a preacher, or 
look in a book, except such a one as the king approves.* 
What are they still but slaves who submit quietly to such a 
state of things ? 



CHAPTER III 

ARISTOCRACY OFFICIALS PASSPORTS. 

After the first steps of the great change in the condition 
of the people, there came the new and important question of 
what should be substituted in place of the feudal aristocracy, 
as a support to the throne, and a machinery for accomplishing 
its purposes. There must be a middle party between the king 
and people, who are too far removed from each other to 
know their mutual wants, or understand their mutual sym- 
pathies ; a class who have been served by slaves and know 
nothing of labor, must still live, and though paupers, could not 
be huddled into poor-houses, or turned into the streets to beg. 
There must be some respectable position manufactured for 
thousands of persons who must still be kept apart from the 
common herd, and have been deprived of their hereditary 
titles and expectancies ; and here we find the secret of the 
great army of petty officials in uniforms, springing up like 
mushrooms all over the land. It seems to the traveler that 
every third person wears the badge of office, and statistics tell 
ns that three millions, at least, depend directly on govern- 
ment for their daily bread. In the choice of none of these 
have the people a single vote, and whatever may be their 
crimes, delinquencies or oppressions, can have no influence in 
getting them removed. Their sympathies are never in any in 

61 



62 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

stance with the people, but with the government that appoints 
them, and pays them, and requires of them blind and abject 
obedience to its commands, against which they are in little 
danger of offending, for the loss of its patronage is the loss 
of all things, as they have no knowledge of any other business 
than the routine of the one office in which they happened to 
get installed. 

The appointment is one for life if no offence is given, and in 
all the inferior positions, where the duties are almost mechani- 
cal, and the performance of them requires no thought, and very 
little exertion, they go through the monotonous process of 
signing passports and collecting taxes, till they have scarcely 
more intelligence or animation than the coins and papers they 
handle. 

In America, " rotation in office " is the principle from high- 
est to lowest, and though the system has its evils, one may be 
very well content with them who has thoroughly understood 
the " office for life " system of Germany, where there is no 
accountability but to the king, and fidelity to an autocrat for 
the one selfish purpose of gaining and keeping a government 
place, is the sole inspiring motive in the performance of every 
duty. But the evil does not end with those already provided 
for, but extends to the hundreds who are living in idleness in 
expectation of office, and who having been trained with special 
reference to it, never think of applying themselves to any 
other business, and have no practical knowledge that fits them 
for any useful station in life. 

Not merely those performing government duties are thus de- 
pendent, but those of every possible profession and trade. The 
apothecary is liceused by government, and cannot open a shop 
in any city or place without permission, and only a certain 



ARISTOCRACY OFFICIALS PASSPORTS. 63 

number are allowed in any one at a time. The physician must 
obtain the same permission to practise, the dentist to fill teeth, 
the merchant to sell goods, the mason to make bricks, the 
shoemaker to make shoes, and the cartman to drive his donkey, 
and for every office or trade there are hundreds all the time 
waiting. 

In one year there were a hundred livings in the church va- 
cant, but there were also nearly three hundred applicants ! For 
a hundred vacant judgeships there were two hundred and fifty 
applicants ; and for a hundred medical appointments, two 
hundred ready to take them, and having no education or know- 
ledge by which they could do anything else. 

The universities are all under the fostering care of govern- 
ment, and the church is paternally cared for in the same way, 
and those who teach either religion, philosophy, or political 
economy must be careful that their dogmas are in accordance 
with those of the king, else farewell to honor and farewell to 
bread. So here is a government phalanx of three millions in 
active service, and as many more obsequiously petitioning and 
waiting for the same favors. In England and America these 
young men would engage in some business, however humble, by 
which they could earn a living, and consider it infinitely more 
honorable than such a life, and the educated and intellectual 
portion of the people must be as verily slaves as the serfs, or 
such trammels upon their thoughts and tongues could not be 
borne. 

We are continually taunted with the reproach that Ameri- 
cans are without education, without appreciation of the fine 
arts, and money is their god. To which we could reply that 
there is more really valuable education iu one State of our 
Federal Union than in all the German States together. We 



64 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

have no galleries of art, to be sure; and may the time be long 
before the people are taxed millions of dollars to build them 
and furnish them, while they live in hovels and starve in gar- 
rets, and we think we shall be long in deciding that it is bet- 
ter to beg than lay up money. It is said to be a very fre- 
quent occurrence, that the grown up and able-bodied students 
of universities, and the mechanics learning their trades, are 
seen begging on the highways, and always with a pipe in their 
mouths. Even the peasant people are taxed to support the 
king's theatre, and we confess music has not seemed to us so 
divine an art, since we have seen at what expense of comfort 
it is cultivated, and how degraded are many who attain to the 
highest perfection in a science considered so ennobling. 

It was long before we came to Germany that we concluded 
mere book knowledge to be the least important and useful of 
all, and our opinion has been a thousand times strengthened 
since we came to this land of dreamers, theorists and specula- 
tors. What good do they accomplish ? How much better for 
themselves and their country that they should be engaged in 
some employment that would provide for themselves comfort, 
and add to the comfort of others ? What a century of genuine 
every-day work is necessary all over the land, to give the 
homes of the people the very first elements of true comfort, such 
as the humblest family in New England would consider abso- 
lutely necessary to life. Labor with the hands they consider 
degrading, so they sit down to eat the bread of dependence 
and spin out theories, till some vacancy in the offices of 
church or state gives them something to do, that comports with 
their ideas of honorable employment. It is said that nine- 
tenths of the students in the universities are wasting their 
energies in this dreamy life of expectation. 



ARISTOCRACY — OFFICIALS PASSPORTS. 65 

Once in a government stall they are fixed for life, and nearly 
every government office, high and low, requires a university 
education. It is certainly wasted on half the metaphysicians 
and theologians, who would be doing less harm, at least, if they 
were hammering stone; and what good it does these " servants 
of the state," who are the merest machines in every duty they 
are called on to perform, and are not allowed to act in a single 
instance for themselves as free agents — cannot marry without 
permission — we cannot imagine. 

It is infinitely amusing, however, to see the importance they 
assume on the most trifling occasion, especially those who stand 
at the corners of the streets, or in some little hut that professes 
to be a custom house, or at some pigeon-hole to receive your 
passport. They seem fully conscious of the petty business 
they are engaged in, and by their pomposity and bluster, and 
the scarlet badge around their throats, remind one of the sable 
tenant of the farmyard when attempting to frighten children 
from its precincts ! Weekly rotation would be better than a sys- 
tem that supports this army of lazy, stupid, conceited life-long 
officials, their " fair round bellies with good capon lined," and 
their fair round faces such a mass of stolidity as one would not 
have believed the human countenance could present. We have 
once or twice fallen into their hands, and though we experi- 
enced no evil, had full proof of their importance. 

In the free city of Frankfort we wished to spend a few weeks, 
and take up our abode in a family of " birth and position," not 
doubting that in a respectable place we should be considered 
respectable, and not having learned from any previous experi- 
ence, that no amount of respectability could exempt men or 
women, in Germany, from the special supervision of the police. 
We were scarcely domiciled when we were called upon by one 



66 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

of this august body to prove our right and title to live and 
breathe unmolested in a so-called free city, in the middle of 
this enlightened nineteenth century. The personage who came 
to inspect our credentials was a good type of his class, his 
countenance giving good evidence of the dull routine of his 
life. 

We stood up before him like a culprit about to be sentenced, 
as he asked : 

" How long do you wish to live in Frankfort V 

" 1 don't know ; perhaps a month, perhaps six months." 

" It is necessary that you have permission." 

"Yes, sir." 

" Have you a passport ?" 

" Yes, sir." 

"It is necessary that I see it." 

" Yes, sir," and we depart to bring it. 

" I will take it to the police office, and return." 

"Yes, sir." 

Whereupon he departed, and we, in the meantime, make 
ourselves merry with the ridiculous law that requires a respec- 
table lady in respectable life to be summoned before the 
police. But our good landlady was almost as much shocked 
as if we had been guilty of sacrilege — that we should presume 
to doubt the concentrated- wisdom of a hundred Frankfort 
Burgomasters. "It was very necessary," she insisted, * * abso- 
lutely necessary for the peace and well-being of the city, that 
no person should be permitted to live in it without permission 
from the government." 

" And what will it do for the peace and well-being of the 
government when I get this permission — what more will they 
know about me for looking at that piece of parchment, which 



ARISTOCRACY OFFICIALS PASSPORTS. 67 

was written and signed by those who never saw nor heard of 
me, and knew nothing of my title to respectability, and only 
knew upon my own assertion whether I was born in one 
country or another ?" 

To this she had nothing to answer, but still insisted that it 
was necessary, and to prove it, said : " Only a little while ago, 
there came a man — a Frenchman — who remained a long time, 
and then ran away without paying his bills," etc., etc. We 
began to think it might be a rare city for virtue and honesty, 
when it was related as a marvelous thing " that a man — a 
Frenchman — ran. away without paying his bills." We had 
heard of fifty Frenchmen, and Germans too, who had done the 
same in New York. But our after-experience destroyed even 
this happy illusion. We learned, though not for the first time, 
that people can be a great deal more scrupulous about what 
their neighbors do than what they do themselves. 

In half an hour the policeman returned, and solemnly said : 

11 You can stay in Frankfort six months, and if you behave 
properly, will not be further molested. But if you then wish 
to prolong your residence, the permission must be renewed." 
We paid the required sum for this permission, and the man of 
authority retired, appearing to think himself on an equality 
with some gallant knight-errant. 

In a little village of Nassau we wished to tarry for a week, 
and did not once think of a passport, but the poor official, 
having nothing else to do, was glad of anything to vary the 
monotony of his life, and immediately came blustering in to 
demand the proofs that we could be permitted with impunity 
to live . in a little dirty inn, in the dominions of the Grand 
Duke of Nassau. Alas ! we had no proofs, except that we 
considered ourself a respectable-looking personage, and such 



68 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

of our deeds as were on record, were not among those of spies, 
thieves, and housebreakers. But this was not enough ; no 
stranger could be allowed to dwell in their midst, without the 
writing signed by the proper authorities, that testified that he' 
was no vagabond, that might pillage or burn, or what per- 
haps was more to be feared, might die, and subject them to 
th> xpense of prayers and burial service. In another place 
; /.riiK J tadt we heard this given as the only reason for requir- 
_jiv. ill l&ii ceremony. If people were sick or in distress, they 
wis^s" i-o knovv where they lived in order to be able to appeal 
to uae<. ? renQ' - government, as they could not afford to 
take care >■ «Gk Monger, or incur the expenses of his fune- 
ral. We couuj >ee . -it" 1 © sense, but not much charity, in 
such a reason. 

There was no appeal ^ik . mortal sickness about us, and 
we feel quite as sure, as : .of being thief or vagabond. Yet 
this did not procure us auy mercy from a Nassau official. He 
considered it his duty to put us under the lock and key of a 
government station-house, until the Consular Agent of the 
United States of America, and His High Mightiness the Grand 
Duke of Nassau, could come to an understanding concerning 
our destination. 

We preferred to depart, and shake the dust of such a heathen 
land from our feet, rather than put these dignitaries to so much 
trouble. But when the inn-keeper and some young men who 
had been to America, and learned a little of civilization, heard 
this conclusion, they petitioned in our behalf, and succeeded in 
assuaging the fears of the man of power for the safety of the 
State, and he condescendingly extended us permission to remain 
one week, accompanied by the assurance that his watchful eye 
would be upon us ! 



ARISTOCRACY OFFICIALS PASSPORTS. 69 

But the people themselves, cannot go from one principality 
to another without all this parade ; the peasants cannot go 
from village to village to attend a fair without permission ; and 
the mechanics, who are compelled by law to spend three years 
in going from place to place, to learn or practise their trades, 
are still not able to travel twenty miles in any direction with 
these passports. The police office is only open at certain hours, 
and if they do not arrive in season in any day, they must be 
detained at great expense till another day, and the appointed 
hour, and each must pay the sum fixed by law, or go to prison, 
or the station-house for the reception of vagabonds. 

A lady who arrives in any place and has not a passport, 
must give fifty dollars bond for good behavior, or the family 
must with whom she resides, no matter what their station, or 
how well known they may be ; with neither money nor pass- 
port she would be turned adrift. The pretence for all this is, 
that they have so great a regard for morality, and the general 
well-being of the community, that they cannot allow in their 
midst irresponsible persons, or those of doubtful position ; and 
this, when you have only to look out of the window, to see 
the most flagrant violations of morality and decency in every 
street and at every corner ; such proofs of the immorality of 
the whole people as seem impossible to be permitted to exist 
in any civilized or Christian land. 

The whole system of signing and viseing 'passports and 
various other documents, is kept up for the sole purpose of 
giving employment to those tens of thousands of officials, who 
have no education or faculty for doing anything else, and whom 
the government need as spies to promote their secret purposes. 

In Norway, officials* are accountable to government, but 
government is also accountable to the people for the appoint- 



70 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY 

ment of its officers, and cannot retain or dismiss them at its 
will. They can appeal to courts, and be tried if accused, and 
are therefore quite independent, and speak and write of govern- 
ment measures with the same freedom as others ; and being 
allowed to think and speak, and act freely, do jot become 
machines or automatons, and the people are not at all in their 
power. 

In America, all official stations are filled by those who are 
constantly mingling with the people, and are of them, knowing 
all their wants and grievances, because they have themselves 
experienced them. Every man who holds an office, from the 
highest to the lowest, has also another trade or profession ; 
and only proves himself qualified for official position by success 
in some other calling. Office is a reward, and not a profession 
by which to gain a livelihood, and the hope of obtaining a 
position which the community considers honorable, is an incite- 
ment to industry and self-qualification. No man is a policeman 
or tax-gatherer for life. These are only episodes which give 
him a little variety, and do not stamp tax-gatherer upon his 
face or manners, as we have seen stamped upon so many here, 
who have done nothing but collect money all their lives, and 
never having been one among those who were called upon to 
pay it also, have no sympathy with the people, but demand 
" the utmost farthing " with a stoical severity, which is indeed 
" grinding the face of the poor," in the most oppressive manner. 

An Englishman, who may be supposed to have no undue 
partiality for American institutions, says : " That in all th^ 
affairs of the United States, men of ordinary education and 
common sense have shown themselves capable of discharging 
very ably all those public functions and official affairs, which 
in Europe are supposed, from their being wrapped up in forms 



ARISTOCRACY — OFFICIALS — PASSPORTS. 71 

and etiquette of procedure, to require long training in official 
bureaux of ministers, very great experience, and much study. 
The Americans have proved in the cabinet and in the field, that 
all this false importance, claimed by men of office and routine, 
vanishes in the management of public affairs, before sound 
common sense and energy. 

" In their foreign diplomacy, American ministers, fresh from 
the counting-house, the printing-office, or the farm, conduct im- 
portant negotiations, at least as successfully, as the regularly 
trained ambassadors of the old European countries. American 
statesmen and generals have proved themselves equal to those 
bred in courts and on parades, in bureaux and at grand re- 
views." 

In Germany, only those who are educated for certain places, 
and are living in expectation of them, take any interest in the 
knowledge requisite for performing the duties which belong to 
them. Among the peasantry there is no hope of office of any 
kind ; no hope of anything out of their humble sphere ; and 
they therefore have no object and no ambition, to extend their 
thoughts or knowledge beyond their humble duties. The mere 
acquisition of knowledge is an incentive to but very few. 

In America, the humblest ploughboy indulges the faint hope 
that he may one day become President of the United States ; 
and knows as well, that it is not as plough^?*, that he can 
enjoy such honors. He may be a mechanic, a farmer, all his 
life, but he must not be an ignorant one ; without an abund- 
ance of energy of mind and body in active operation. 

Ambition — the reward of distinction of some kind — is also 
necessary to spur men to effort. If a man gains wealth, he 
exhibits talent of a certain species, and patient persevering 
effort, which deserves the reward of commendation in some 



72 PEASANT LIFE EST GERMANY. 

form from his fellow-men, and deserves position, far more than 
ihose who are born to honors, and who cannot appreciate true 
merit. ( See Appendix C.) 

The objection is made to rotation, the great excitement and 
whirl in which it keeps the whole country. But this is exagge- 
rated by the newspapers, and is only political at any time. To 
those who look on, and only read the daily journals, America 
seems like one great maelstrom, into which all that is valuable 
in society is being plunged. But the social condition of the 
country is far less affected by it than appears. In New Eng- 
land the people are about as settled in their ways, and as im- 
movable as the Germans, only they happen to be settled into 
a better order of things. Even the yearly rotation in office 
produces scarcely a ripple upon their sea of life. They put on 
and off dignities as they do their winter garments, and take it 
all as a matter of course. The duties of most offices are little 
more than matters of ceremony, there as well as here ; and the 
man who gathers taxes spends but very little time about it, 
and is not obliged to neglect his farm or his merchandise to 
count money or keep an account of it. Even those who are 
sent to the Senate and House of Kepresentatives, require only 
tne exercise of a little good sense, and it is certain that many 
in the early days of the republic, assisted in framing the best 
Constitution and laws any country has seen, without being able 
to spell three words correctly, and hardly able to write at all ; 
and when this was done, they returned to the plough and the 
desk, not less expert or content than before. 

Kings invent many instruments of oppression, and this army 
of spies is not the least of them all. There is not a man in 
New England who would wear the yoke under which the Ger- 
man peasant bends, for a single day or hour. 



CHAPTER IV. 

COSTUMES FEUDAL OPPRESSION — RELIGION. 

It has been a matter of great wonder and curiosity to us, as 
we have read of Germany, how, within so small a compass, 
there could live so many distinct classes of people — how each 
little province or district should retain a distinct costume, and 
customs as unlike those in a neighboring province or district as 
those of Paris and Constantinople. 

We could understand that people living under different gov- 
ernments and laws, and speaking different languages, should be 
different. The Turkish costume is the costume of all Turkey, 
the Grecian of all Greece : and in the great empire of Russia 
there are only two — one for the serf, and one for his master. 
In Norway there is only one. In England, the dress of the cot- 
tage is the same in form and fashion as that of the court, dif- 
fering only in material, according to the means of the wearer? 
and diversified by the tastes of individuals. Why should there 
be in Germany a hundred among no greater number of peo- 
ple ? The solution we find not so difficult, now we have come 
among them. 

Long centuries ago, when Tacitus wrote of the Germans, he 
mentioned twenty-seven tribes situated between the Elbe, the 
Saale, and the Vistula, and eighteen others between the Elbe 
and the Rhine, all speaking the same language, and evidently 
having the same origin, yet always remaining distinct. They 

4 73 



74 PEASANT LIFE EST GERMANY. 

would perhaps unite to repel foreign invasion, and immediately 
separate again, to revolve in their own little orbits, and live 
within their own little spheres. 

At the time of this description they were, in every sense of the 
word, barbarians ; and we are not to suppose that Tacitus, or 
any one else, in those days obtained any very definite know- 
ledge of fifty roving, barbarous tribes, speaking a different lan- 
guage from his own, and keeping no records by which the past 
or present could be traced. Their clothing was the skin of the 
beast of the forest, and their food his flesh. 

As civilization crept in among them, we can easily imagine 
that he who was at first their chief, because he was more strong 
or more fierce, became their ruler, because he was more wise 
or more cunning. The next step they would naturally take to- 
wards permanency and order would be that of feudalism, when 
a few more ambitious and, brave than the rest would appropri- 
ate the land, and those who lived upon it, and for defence build 
their strongholds, which we see scattered all over the interior 
of Germany, and marshal around them as many dependents as 
their domains would support, who would have no option but to 
obey. 

In a little time, power would become consolidated in the 
hands of a few, and the multitude would become subjects, with 
such rights and privileges only as their masters saw fit to 
grant ; and as there is a peculiar fascination in power, any one 
who could obtain authority over a sufficient number would con- 
stitute himself their prince or governor. Thus each petty tribe 
became a petty principality, and a few baronial lords formed a 
feudal court — the satellites of a prince who ruled only by the 
right of the strongest, and at most numbered only a few hun- 
dreds within the limits of his power. Thus we read of those 



COSTUMES FEUDAL OPPRESSION RELIGION. 75 

grand cavalcades, where the prince, with his lords and knights, 
with their squires and vassals, issued from the castle gates with 
the sound of music and the flourish of trumpets, striking awe 
into the hearts of the people by the imposing spectacle. 

How it should happen that each little court should have an 
entirely distinct costume does not appear, unless from the desire 
of each to take advantage of everything that could give it 
prestige and importance; and a livery by which all who belonged 
to it should be known, would certainly be a very effective 
way, and is still practised among the different noble families of 
England in regard to all who belong to their households. 

That in these days the dress of the serf was the same as that 
of his lord, and the maid like that of her mistress, is known by 
the carvings upon armory, and upon the monuments in old 
cathedrals. There we find upon the tomb of the prince a,nd 
baron the costume in which he was accustomed to appear ; and 
we see that the costume of the peasant in that principality or 
dukedom is the same to this day. The dress of the modern 
courtier is changed ; for he has "gone the way of all the 
world," which is to Paris, for his fashions, and indulges in all 
the freaks for which the fickle goddess is so famed. But the 
peasant knows nothing of Paris, and in these days knows 
scarcely more of the little German court, which is not the 
grand affair it was in the old feudal times; and besides, changes 
are not within his means. We have sometimes asked them 
why they dressed in so peculiar a way, instead of conforming 
to the rest of the world, and they say: " This was the way our 
fathers did, and they were respectable people, so we follow 
their example." 

When it became the custom for lords and ladies to spend 
their time in distant cities, and to leave their castles and estates 



76 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

to brutal overseers, only spending a few weeks occasionally 
among their dependents, the tie of affection was dissolved, and 
obedience was no longer a dictate of the heart, but a matter of 
unwilling necessity. The line between the "high-born" and 
lowly became more marked and impassable than ever. The 
one class became more proud, and haughty, and distant, and 
the other more abject and debased in their servitude. Those 
of the same humble condition became more attached to their 
own ways, and tenacious of their peculiar customs, and min- 
gling very little with others, had no motive or inducement to 
change. 

There was also another question which continually recurred, 
and was in the distance quite as insoluble. When serfdom was 
abolished, and the peasant became a free man, why did so great 
a political change effect so little in his social condition ? In 
other lands the peasantry gradually adopt the dress, and man- 
ners, and habits of living of those above them, and the country 
imitates the town. But here there is no such amalgamation. 
However high the standard of intelligence, refinement, and cul- 
tivation in any city, the people, one mile beyond its walls, are 
in no material respect different from their ancestors hundreds 
of years ago. What can there be in their humble routine that 
acts like a spell in keeping them within its circle ? Alas ! we 
have learned that it is the pressure from above that keeps them 
down. There is nothing essentially groveling in their natures. 
They are no longer serfs, but they are still very far from being 
free, and to change their condition is as impossible now as when 
they were bought and sold with the land they tilled. 

We have listened in amazement to hear the contempt with 
which city people speak of the Landhute — the country or peasant 
people — as if they were reptiles or worms, to be trodden upon ; 



COSTUMES FEUDAL OPPRESSION — RELIGION. 77 

and it is true that every manner of unkindness and ungenerous 
advantage is exercised towards them to make them feel their 
degradation, and keep up the enmity between them. Even in 
the free cities they are not allowed to pass the gates without 
tribute. The market-woman cannot bring her basket of eggs 
and vegetables, without having it first searched, and that it is 
often done in the most insulting manner we have been eye- 
witness. The farmer's cart, too, is subject to the same inspec- 
tion, and half his hay or straw, or whatever he carries, is per- 
haps tumbled into the street, for him to reload, which he is told 
to do with a curse that makes him writhe beneath the indignity, 
as well as groan under the tyranny. How can they care to 
imitate even the good they see in a people from whom they 
experience so much evil ? 

In many districts we see among the peasantry a few who 
have become rich, yet they do not change their costume, except, 
perhaps, to wear a little finer material, and do not remodel 
their houses or furniture, and these are as essentially distinct 
and peculiar as their dress. There is an evident wish to remain 
distinct, and a decided aversion to assimilation, deep-seated, 
and deep-sown with the seeds of animosity. The various sub- 
jects and illustrations which fill the remainder of our book will 
perhaps do something towards an explanation, if to others the 
question is involved in the same mystery that it was to us. 

The large landowners, on being deprived of their estates, 
removed to the towns, and could not, of course, be supposed to 
feel very amiable under the new order of things. They had lost 
their wealth, and were shorn of their laurels. Labor had 
always been performed by the degraded, and they looked upon 
it as degrading. They, therefore, could not toil For support 
and position they must depend upon government offices, and it 



78 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

is not likely would give their influence to measures for the 
benefit of those who had become free at their expense. This is 
our supposition ; we cannot trace through all their gradations 
the decrees which have proved a millstone upon the necks of 
the poor, and we cannot imagine how kings and councils, in 
their senses, could, from any motive whatever, bind the souls 
aud bodies of their subjects as those of every subject in Ger- 
many are bound. 

We did not think to enter into the assemblies of princes, or 
to meddle with their decrees ; but when we came to mingle 
with the people, we found everything in their social state and 
economy so depending upon their governments, that without 
entering a little into the reasons of things, and tracing effects to 
their causes, all we had to relate would seem without beginning 
and without end — an unintelligible mass of details, concerning 
manners and customs, as strange among civilized people, in the 
nineteenth century, as the fetish of Africa, or the caste of 
Hindostan. 

How often we have heard it expressed as a matter of 
astonishment, in America, that the country in which originated 
the Reformation should have so soon degenerated into a nation 
" fearing not God and keeping not his word." How many are 
lamenting that the children of those who were the disciples of 
Luther and Calvin, and ready to give their lives in defence of 
the faith, should have become indifferent to the religion of their 
fathers, and that the churches where the truth was first 
preached in its simplicity should be left desolate ! Yet there 
are very good reasons for this seemiug degeneracy, which is not 
strange in the ordinary nature of things, for causes have been 
followed by their natural effects. 

It is not so long ago, that it should be forgotten by those 



COSTUMES FEUDAL OPPRESSION — RELIGION. 79 

who are not u the oldest inhabitants," that a Protestant king 
of ~Prussia.forbade " the worship of God according to the dic- 
tates of his conscience," to every Lutheran and Calvinist in 
his dominions. Frederic William III., like Henry VIII. and 
James I., wished to be supreme in the Church as well as the 
State, and framed a liturgy which was henceforth to be used 
among his people, if their obedience could be enforced by fire 
and fagot, or at the point of the sword. 

Catholics were allowed to go on as the pope ordained, but for 
state reasons it was necessary to make a compromise with the 
sovereign pontiff, and as it would be impossible to convert the 
Protestants of Germany back to Catholicism, the attempt was 
made to compromise with them also, or rather a decree was 
made commanding them to give up the beloved ritual which 
Luther prepared, and the prayer-book he recommended, and 
those who should refuse were threatened with "fire and impri- 
sonment." 

In the Lutheran chuches, many more of the Catholic forms 
had been retained than in the Calvinist, which were rigid in 
their simplicity ; but both were now alike required to restore 
the dethroned images, to set up the candlesticks, and rehang 
the pictures, and to "fall down and worship" in the wav 
the king ordained. Prussia was but a small portion of Ger- 
many, and this sceptre extended over but few among the whole 
people, till all those of inferior right and power thought to 
exalt themselves by following so worthy an example. The 
Duke of Baden declared the Calvinistic service too demo- 
cratic to be- allowed in the land of princes, and so the whole 
Protestant nation was at once nominally transformed from 
many Lutheran and Calvinistic churches, to one Prussian 
church, in which all were to worship together. 



80 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

It could not be expected that forms which had been estab- 
lished for centuries should be quietly given up and others 
adopted at the simple mandate of a king, It was not strauge 
that the churches should be deserted, and that the people 
should become indifferent to religion in any form. 

But this was not all. A Protestant king of Prussia, in the 
nineteenth century, forbade, also, on pain of fine and imprison- 
ment, meetings in private houses, for prayer and praise, and 
kept corps of military on every highway, and in every village 
street to ferret out any poor disciples who should venture to do 
what the Saviour recommended, rather than the king of Prussia. 
Christ said " where two or three are gathered together in my 
name, there will I be in their midst ;" but those who would 
do this in Germany, must hide themselves among rocks and in 
caves, as did the early Christians, who were by Romam empe- 
rors persecuted and slain. Whole villages . in Silesia were 
deserted by the inhabitants, who fled across the sea for no other 
purpose than to be able to preach and pray as they thought 
right. We have traversed the road by which they marched to 
the vessels which bore them weeping away, and have talked with 
those who saw them, with weary footsteps, marching through 
the forests and along the valleys, broken in spirit and heavy- 
hearted. Six hundred embarked from one port in a day, and 
from two to three thousand in all renounced home and country, 
and all else they held dear, for the faith of their fathers. 

It was in December, 1834, that a body of soldiers, were 
marched upon the little village of Hoenigern, the home of 
pious Lutherans, to compel them to enter the churches and 
worship after the form the king had prescribed. Finding the 
churches locked and nailed, they forced them open, and fired 
upon the people, wounding many. Still they resisted, and 



COSTUMES FEUDAL OPPRESSION RELIGION. 81 

neither the sword nor imprisonment could force them to obey. 
Their houses were then filled with a brutal soldiery, who were 
permitted to trample and insult them, but still they opened not 
their mouths, and when there was no longer hope of peace and 
freedom of conscience, they fled. Not yet thirty years have 
passed since this scene of bloody persecution in the name of 
Protestantism and Christianity. 

It was this same king who promised his subjects a " consti- 
tution w and u representative government," and though rein- 
stated upon his throne upon solemnly pledging his word that this 
should be their reward, he never fulfilled this promise. Every 
feeling that could attach them to king and country has been 
outraged. 

In 1815, when the nations met in the famous " Congress of 
Vienna," to divide the spoils, not a thought was bestowed upon 
the people, who were set off and parcelled out at the sovereign 
will and pleasure of these lords and potentates, in a way to 
best promote their own interest. Those who had long served 
under one duke or margrave, were in a day transferred to an- 
other, without regard to any bond of attachment they might 
have to the name and family of him whose subjects they and 
their fathers had been. This was nothing to those who only 
counted the number who could owe them allegience, and the 
amount of treasure in gold and silver which would be poured 
into their coffers, by so many slaves. Whether they had hearts 
and souls or not, was of no consequence, or how ruthlessly they 
were trampled and crushed. 

What wonder that loyalty and religion dwelt no more in the 
fatherland ! 

But let America remember, she has in her midst more than 
one colony of praying Germans, who fled from the laud of their 

4* 



82 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

birth, and the homes which had been hundreds of years their 
fathers' and fathers" fathers, to seek an asylum in a strange 
land beyond the sea, for exactly the same reason that 

" A band of pilgrims moored their barks 
On the wild New England coast." 

They had not so many " perils by sea and perils by land," 
and therefore their names will not live so long in story, but 
they were not the less martyrs in the cause of truth. 

It was in the nineteenth, instead of the seventeenth century, 
that they were driven forth by the rod of persecution, and they 
took refuge in a land of plenty, so they did not " die of cold, 
and hunger, and nakedness," and their prayers and tears have 
not been so often the theme of poet and historian. But they 
deserve a passing tribute, at least, from those who would 
do honor to self-denial and sacrifice in a noble cause. We have 
seen the homes they founded in the new world, far away in the 
western wilderness, the churches they built, and heard the faith 
they teach, and know them to be good and true. And now we 
have seen, in the old world, the homes they left, which were not 
deserted because they were not fair and pleasant — because the 
sky above them was not genial, nor the earth able to yield an 
abundance for the wants of all her children, but because oppres- 
sion sits in high places, and they are scourged from the land 
they love 



CHAPTER V. 

MILITARY SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTS. 

It is in no instance because the land is not cultivated in 
Germany, that she swarms in such multitudes. There is 
enough and to spare for all, if it were only divided in any 
equal measure, and the poor could only be allowed the tenth 
part of the fruits of their labors. 

But the most oppressive and paralyzing of all the influences 
upon the people is the military system, which we would think 
might have been invented by some evil genius as a blight and 
plague-spot upon the nation. In this, too, Prussia set the 
example, and the others followed, as if she were the goddess 
of wisdom, as indeed she seems to be in all that can be devised 
to bring evil upon Germany. 

Again we must go back to the past, in order to give a clear 
view of the present. 

In the old feudal times every able-bodied man was obliged 
to do military service, from prince to peasant — from the crown 
vassal to the meanest serf — and when of the whole there were 
so few, this was perhaps the only way to make sure of defence. 

The knight was obliged to appear in the field with two 
esquires, two servants, and nine horses, as his equipment. All 
nobles served on horseback, but the peasants and serfs, as well 
as the common people of cities and towns, served on foot. 

83 



84 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

History and romance have made us familiar with the deeds 
of brave knights, and gay troubadours have sung their loves, 
but we fancy they were both more brave and true in romance 
than reality. Chivalrous devotion to fair ladies, and breaking 
lances in the cause of honor, have something very fascinating 
as we read them ; but these very chivalrous knights beat their 
serfs till they could not stand, and even unto death, for the 
most trifling offences, and swore, and cursed, and drank, and 
reveled in a way that would banish any man from the society 
of gentlemen in these days. 

But beating of servants is not yet banished from the peculiar 
and cherished privileges of masters in Europe. We have just 
seen that in Sweden it still stands permitted upon the statute 
book, and when an effort was lately made to have it erased, 
the majority were against it. What a noble privilege, and 
how prized ! that " a master and mistress may beat their ser- 
vants whenever they please." That some made an effort to 
get it abolished, proves that it is also an abused privilege. 
There would be no need of depriving them of a, right of which 
they nevqr availed themselves, and those must be, to all intents 
aud purposes, slaves, who have no alternative but to stand and 
be beaten. 

The word soldier is derived from the word Sold, and means 
pay, and was applied to those men who were paid for doiug 
military service by those who were allowed, and who preferred 
to give money instead of going themselves. Thus a few were 
exempt from this onerous duty, aud it has been always con- 
sidered a step onward in civilization. It was taken in the 
thirteenth century. 

In 1145, wc find these military cavalcades spoken of as so 
many Speere, and to each spear belonged a spearman, a squire, 



MILITARY SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTS. 85 

n r eapon bearer, and eight heavy armed men on foot. Each 
company was composed of those who belonged to one feudal 
lord, so that they were not mere soldiers bound together by no 
tie except that afforded by military service. There was also 
a social bond, and when they went to the field, they fought 
side by side with comrades whom they knew and loved. 

Charles VII. of France was the first king who kept a stand- 
ing army, but his example was soon followed by others ; for 
this was another step in advance of the old feudal system. 
The military strength of each country was then easily ascer- 
tained, and the several princes would not be so likely to make 
war upon futile occasions, nor the weak and defenceless to risk 
offence with those by whom they could be easily subdued. 

A certain number, kept constantly in pay and ready for 
service, was a great relief to the masses, who were thus at 
liberty to stay at home, and attend to their several callings, 
and their industry was thus adding wealth to the nation. That 
a few were required every year to fill up the broken ranks, 
was a slight evil, to requiring the whole to be in readiness at 
any time to take the field, or to waste their time in military 
exercises. 

But the king of Prussia has seen fit to go back to the days 
of barbarism, and require of every man, of whatever trade or 
profession, to give three of the best years of his life, and the 
best portion of his strength and time to military drilling. He 
found, sure enough, that his standing army was of little service 
against Napoleon's raw recruits, but Prussian officers were 
hampered by etiquette and burdened with equipage, and the 
soldiers were paralyzed by fear and brutalized by ill treat- 
ment, so that it was like moving a mass of dead bodies to 
marshal and command them on the field of battle. When 



86 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

serfdom was abolished, and inhuman punishments interdicted, 
and a new and living army went forth conquering and to con- 
quer, it was seen that men need not spend all their lives in 
military manoeuvres, in order to fight effectually. But they 
need some strong, impelling motive ; and such a one as Napo- 
leon and his armies furnished, will not be likely to be offered 
again in a century. 

The king of Prussia mistook one cause for another, and 
concluded it was a better way to convert a whole nation into 
soldiers, and he has thus converted a whole nation into idlers 
and paralytics. (See Appendix ~D.) 

Every man must spend three years, between twenty and 
twenty-five, in learning military tactics, lounging idly in bar- 
racks, and becoming acquainted with every species of vice. 
How well fitted must a young man be for the humble duties 
of his trade, and the seclusion of a village home, who has been 
trained in such a school. In three years he could have 
acquired skill in the use of tools, and an experience that would 
be a mine of wealth in after years, but however dexterous he 
has become in the use of sword and rifle, he is only the more 
awkward with the plough and the trowel. With the loss of 
knowledge he has lost his interest in the occupations by which 
he must gain his bread, and most likely through life remains 
an inefficient and unproductive laborer. During these three 
idle years, others with the same trade take his place in the 
community, and when he returns he must commence again at 
every disadvantage. Very likely, too, he has acquired not 
only idle but vicious habits, and any one who has seen these 
young meu roving and lounging about garrison towns, would 
not expect them ever again to become a useful or respectable 
class of people in any other sphere of life. They not only 



MILITARY SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTS. 87 

become demoralized themselves, but are the demoralization of 
every place where they are quartered, and when they are 
scattered again over the country, must carry with them these 
evil habits, which, even if they make an effort, cannot be 
shaken off in a moment, after three years' iudulgence. One 
cannot help thinking that if there must be a soldiery, it is 
better that a few make it their profession, and suffer its evils, 
than that every young man in the nation should be destroyed 
by its corrupt influences, and so paralyzed in his business 
and industry, as to be henceforth useless to himself and the 
country. 

We have read a thousand heart-rending stories of the 
weeping and wailing caused by the conscription system of 
Napoleon ; that men were ready to cut off a right hand, or 
pluck out a right eye, rather than be enrolled in the army, 
but we have heard even that called a blessing in comparison 
to the Landwehr system of the king of Prussia. Napoleon 
took only so many from a certain number of inhabitants, and 
in all cases a substitute was permitted, if it could be obtained; 
and also, in the old feudal system, a man could purchase 
exemption ; but here there is no substitution and no exemption, 
and when three years have been wasted in drills and manoeu- 
vres, this does not finish the evil. A few weeks of every year 
must be spent in practising, that he may not forget the routine. 
A few regiments, called "regiments of the line," are kept 
continually in service and pay, and into these the raw recruits 
enter to be practised. What curses deep and long we have 
heard muttered against the governments that impose such laws 
and exactions ! The revolution of 1848 was entirely in conse- 
quence of them. The people had borne till there had come a 
limit to their endurance, and they rose up to shake off the 



88 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

chains. But, as we said before, there is in the thinking part 
of the people a defect. They are visionary, and attempt 
impossibilities. They have not been trained in a practical 
school, and the uneducated, but deep-feeling and suffering 
people, who intrust themselves to their guidance, are deluded, 
and not delivered. 

When they found there was no hope — that neither unity or 
liberty were to be obtained, then commenced the stream of 
emigration which has been going on ever since, and to the 
causes of which government tries to shut its eyes. In the old 
military system, there was at least distinction to be gained, 
but in this there is none, because where every man is a soldier 
all are on a level, and the peasants can seldom attain to the 
rank of officers, for the want of education, which they have 
not the means to acquire. There is nothing to kindle a spark 
of enthusiasm for their calling. They go like animals driven 
to be slaughtered, and perform their evolutions like automa- 
tons. 

There is, besides, no unanimity between the different states, 
and in many cases the most cordial enmity. There can be 
nothing more intense than the hatred which the Prussian bears 
to the Austrian, which is manifested every time they meet in 
the street, and that of the Bohemian and Bavarian is scarcely 
less to the haughty house of Hapsburg. There happened under 
our window one evening, in Frankfort, a quarrel and skirmish 
between the soldiers of these different states. The trouble 
commenced at a dance, where a pretty girl promised her hand 
for the next waltz to a Prussian, and when the time came gave 
it to an Austrian. The former immediately drew his sword, and 
all present took sides, when they issued into the street to fight 
it out. It was the first time in our life that we had seen th<* 



MILITARY SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTS. 89 

clashing of swords, and though it was a very insignificant 
occasion, and at the most a very trifling affair, it was suffi- 
ciently sad and fearful. Several received wounds of which they 
afterwards died, and the whole length of the street was filled 
with people in carriages, on horseback, and on foot, from the 
lumbering and stately equipage of the Frankfort burgomaster, 
to the humblest boor. The uniform of each state is so distinct 
as to be recognized in the dark, and in any trouble. the officers 
are immediately upon the alert. Patrols of ten or twenty 
commenced regular marches through the disaffected streets, and 
for several nights their tramping was heard till morning, and 
the sun "glistened on their burnished armor." Every epithet 
of scorn which the language afforded, was hurled from one to 
the other among the offended, and all the authority of the city 
military, and official power of each regiment, were necessary to 
quell the disturbance. The cause we heard from a young girl 
who brought us bread the next day, and who was present. 
Her lover was also wounded, for this is one of the moral pecu- 
liarities of garrisoned towns, that every soldier becomes the 
fiance of some poor girl, who really believes that long years 
hence, when he is allowed, and able, to marry, she shall 
become his wife, which, we are sorry to say, seldom happens. 
No officer is allowed to marry unless he or his wife is worth 
five thousand dollars ; and no common soldier is allowed to 
marry at all. At all hours of the day, when not on duty, they 
may be seen promenading with their sweethearts, who are 
mostly servants in good families. The contrast is quite striking 
between the man and woman, for though the soldier is very 
likely from the same class as the servant, if well formed and 
good-looking in his uniform, he has decidedly the advantage of 
a poor girl who has just emerged from the kitchen, and has not 



90 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

thought it at all necessary to fix up in order to go forth with 
her lover. Very likely she is on her way to market, with a tub 
or basket on her head, while he is in laced coat and white kids, 
with a gilt sword-hilt and other bright accoutrements hanging 
at his side. They have an appointment, and wait for each 
other at some shop or corner, as the girl cannot be sought at the 
place where she lives, though it is well known by those who 
employ her that much of her time is spent in soldiers' barracks. 
It has been a standing joke against our greenness since we have 
been here, that for weeks we assumed these pairs to be brothers 
and sisters, or members of the same family, as we had never 
dreamed that those bearing such a relationship promenaded 
openly and with the knowledge and consent of " families of the 
first respectability." They may do it elsewhere, but in ordinary 
dress it is not known, while the uniform makes it certain that 
these are only thousands of liaisons, as soldiers are not allowed 
to form any ties more honorable. 

We have never been able to understand how those who are 
scrupulous even to prudishness about what gentlemen and 
ladies do, should manifest no concern whatever in the moral 
welfare of the poor. A story will illustrate, and we had it 
from a German lady who was very tenacious of the honor of 
her country. A young girl presented herself as wishing a place 
as domestic in the family. The husband said, "Ask her how 
many children she has ; and if she says one, it may be prudent, 
but better two or even three ; if she says none, send her away 
by all means, for if she comes, we shall be obliged to dismiss 
her in six months.' 7 It is said by city ladies, that girls from 
the country are far more debased than those who have lived 
always in the city, but we presume it is only that they are 
more easily deceived; and some assert that those from Catholic 



MILITARY SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTS. 91 

districts are worse than any other ; but this we did not find 
proved in our own observations, and do not think there is any- 
ground for the assertion. 

When Napoleon swept through the land, he not only over- 
turned thrones and kingdoms, but churches and monasteries. 
Hundreds of lazy monks were turned adrift, and lazy priests 
deprived of their livings, and offices in the church couferred 
upon worthy young men, and many from the peasant class 
received favors at his hands. What a tottering of old institu- 
tions there was wherever he went. And one must see the 
remnants of barbarism that still remain, and the iron hand of 
long-established despotism that still holds the reins of govern- 
ment — the shackles of customs fastened for ages upon the 
people, and the haughty oppression of a proud aristocracy, in 
order to fully understand the good work he performed. The 
most cruel acts of tyranny of which he was ever guilty, were 
mild, in comparison to those which were the daily pastime of 
the kings who ruled by the right divine, and those who are still 
denominated, " His most Christian Majesty," and the " Lord's 
anointed." Another just such a whirlwind, to stir up the 
stagnant waters which are still settled in every valley of this 
old world, would be the greatest blessing they could expe- 
rience. 

Kings were obliged to change their tactics, but the dungeons 
are not less dark and dank than they were when a republican 
army opened their doors and searched their recesses ; the 
chains are not less galling which fetter the limbs of those who 
do not sit down quietly under the yoke which despots forge, 
and the poison not less effectual which stops the murmurings 
of unwilling slaves. 

There is no hope for Germany but through some great con- 



92 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

vulsion, which shall make these potentates tremble for their 
power, unless they use it rightly. One writer, whose philoso- 
phizings have greatly interested and edified us, thinks " unity 
among these many states impossible, because there is no mate- 
rial interest to unite them," and goes on to demonstrate that 
'"England and Scotland would not have so quietly joined hands, 
had it not been that the one needed the other in commercial, 
manufacturing, and agricultural exchanges, and that the north- 
ern and southern States of America are linked by the same tie, 
which is stronger even than any national pride, any bond of 
brotherhood cemented by even a long period of struggle and 
suffering side by side. People are more inclined to do what is 
for their interest, than what is for their glory ; and as long as 
the cotton, sugar, and rice of the South are in demand at the 
North, and the commerce and manufactures of the North are 
necessary to the South, they will be as likely to dissolve into 
two or many separate governments, as England to resolve itself 
into the Saxon Heptarchy." This material interest, together 
with the strong national feeling which does and must ever 
exist between the descendants of those who partook of the 
same strife, and shared the same glory in establishing an inde- 
pendent government, may be the preserving element of our 
republic. And we are inclined to think there will be few who 
will care to renounce their proprietorship in a government 
and country of which Washington was the common Father. 
The halo of American liberty shines equally upon all. The 
honor and glory of those who achieved it, were shared in an 
equal degree by all. Those who remove from under the brood- 
ing wings of the proud eagle, and the shadow of the star- 
spo.ngled banner, must renounce for their children all heritage 
in this glorious past, and either wreathe for them new laurels, 



MILITARY SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTS. 93 

or deprive them of one of the strongest incentives to virtue, 
energy and the acquirement of a good name. To help pre- 
serve and transmit this inheritance, is the privilege of the 
humblest citizen, and something which adds to his dignity, and 
inspires him to industry and effort ; and there can be nothing 
in all the future to compensate for its loss. 

If national feeling and "material interest" are both neces- 
sary to form a nation, there can be little hope that Germany 
will become one. Her climate and productions are nearly the 
same in every part, so that each is self-reliant, and her manu- 
facturing and agricultural resources very nearly equal. As we 
have said elsewhere, there were in the beginning numerous dis 
tinct tribes, many of which became distinct duchies and princz 
palities ; and though as early as the middle of the tenth 
century there was what was called an empire, which commenced 
with Otho the Great, who gained the title of emperor by his 
conquest of Italy, it was an empire without power and without 
head ; for each of the separate states of which it was com- 
posed, had a government entirely independent, and the electors 
by whose votes a new emperor was placed on the throne, in no 
case yielded obedience to him contrary to their own wishes and 
interests. Each was continually striving to aggrandize and 
exalt himself, and the whole country was therefore torn by in- 
ternal dissensions, which made it a constant prey to foreign 
aggressors. 

After a time, the head of the Austrian government assumed 
the title of emperor, and eclipsed in power and extent of 
dominion the united principalities, and then Prussia arose to 
rival both empires, and in the contest, which, under Frederick 
the Great and Maria Theresa, lasted seven years, the whole 
land was laid waste. Poor Silesia was the bone of contention? 



94 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

which Frederic coveted, and to which he had no right ; and 
that he gained it by might and injustice, and Austria lost it, is 
still the cause of the bitter, undying hatred between the two 
countries. It may be of little consequence to the Silesians to 
which power they give allegiance ; but the long wars, and the 
constant fear of being again the theatre of the strife of nations, 
and the heavy taxes to support them, keep them wretchedly 
poor and miserable. 

But the last vestige of a German empire did not disappear 
till Napoleon came with liberty inscribed on his banner, and 
promises of freedom and protection to all who would join his 
standard. Fifteen German states then voluntarily withdrew 
from the German Empire, which had now become one only in 
name, and formed the Confederation of the Rhine, which was 
again dissolved when the great conqueror fell to rise no more, 
though these states are in most respects more French than 
German in spirit, and give to France all their national sympa- 
thies. Whoever shall be so ambitious as to seize upon and 
annex them to the French Empire, may count upon their 
loyalty. To Germany they would be lost evermore. It was 
not till they became' subject to Prussia, that they learned that 
even to support the armies of Napoleon and exposed to the 
ravages of armies, they were less oppressed with taxes, and 
more free in every respect as Frenchmen in time of war, than 
as Prussians in time of peace. In the countries where the con- 
queror seemed then only a scourge, they have learned to look 
upon him as a blessing ; and the states over which he had for 
a time ruled, are now far in advance of any other German 
states, in the comfort and general improvement of the whole 
people. 

The agriculture of Rhenish Prussia, is in the most prosperous 



MILITARY SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTS. 95 

state of any other part of the king's dominions, and from 
these provinces he receives the largest revenue in proportion to 
the number of inhabitants. Here we meet fewer who are 
miserably poor, and by far the smallest proportion of beggars. 

What in the agricultural portion of Old and New England 
is termed morality, seems at a low ebb everywhere on the 
Continent. We read in authentic documents, what must be 
true, though scarcely credible, that in Rhenish Prussia the pro- 
portion of illegitimate children is from three to four in every 
hundred ; and in all other parts of Germany, from twenty to 
twenty-five in every hundred ; or one fourth of all that are 
born. 

The reason given for the difference in favor of the former, is 
the better condition of the people, which admits of earlier 
marriages, the establishment of homes, and the support of 
families. Yet one writer says the Irish are rich in comparison 
to the people of Rhenish Prussia ; that they have no beds but 
naked straw, and no food year after year but black bread and 
potatoes, and the poorest cottage in England is richer than the 
richest in many towns on the Rhine. There, too, you may see 
a donkey and a woman harnessed together to draw a plough. 

In the little town of Goar it has been the custom for three 
hundred years, to collect the young girls upon an open platz 
and put them up to the highest bidder- — the whole lot for fifty 
dollars — and then each one separately. A man having bought 
and paid for one, she is subject to him for a year, and must, 
during that time, be his partner in the village dances, or at 
least dance with no one else, and consider herself at all time? 
at his disposal when required for his gratification. 

In Hesse Cassel, we were told that a young girl could any- 
where be bought in the same way, and for a very trifling sum, 



yb PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

merely because of their poverty. This is considered the poorest 
of any state in Germany, and supports the largest military 
force ; the elector being essentially warlike iu his propen- 
sities. 

It was another curse, we heard often from the mouths of 
women, that the government officials were everywhere the 
employes of the ravisher and seducer; and many were the stories 
we heard of their baseness in becoming the instruments of con- 
signing young and friendless girls to the most unendurable of 
all thralldoms, who had no alternative but starvation or crime. 
We do not at all suppose these men to be worse by nature 
than others ; but, having more power and opportunity, they 
can do more mischief. 

" Slave Life in Europe," by Hacklander, gives no exaggerated 
picture of the class he describes ; and " Slave Life in America'' 
contains no darker. We could cover our pages with stories of 
stern and simple truth, as heartrending, concerning those who 
are not called slaves, but who have not a single element of 
freedom. 



CHAPTER VI. 

RISE AND DECAY OF FEUDALISM GROWTH OF FREE CITIES 

ANNUAL DINNER OF MERCHANTS AND SEA-CAPTAINS AT BREMEN. 

We find in Germany, laws and customs concerning corpora- 
tions, trades, and all mechanical arts, that strike us as not only 
unjust and oppressive, but barbarous ; and wonder how they 
can be tolerated among a civilized people. But in judging, we 
must first consider how they originated, and then how difficult 
it is to change long established usages, especially among a 
people so isolated, and who see so little of the world outside 
their own circle, and read and write, and speak a different 
language from those nations among which innovations are most 
frequent and progress most rapid. 

Again we must go back to the dark ages, and trace by its 
slow steps the advance of light, and watch its faint glimmer- 
ings here and there, as ignorance and superstition give way 
before it. 

We have seen that the Romans conquered portions of Ger- 
many, and left the traces of their footsteps wherever they went. 
They were then defied, re-conquered, and almost extinguished 
by the barbarian hordes that poured down upon them from the 
North ; and as these wild tribes emancipated themselves, and 
settled in the countries they conquered, each became a distinct 
principality, and feudalism was the result of their attempts at 
protection and self-defence ; and for four centuries, from the 

5 97 



yo PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

seventh to the eleventh, they remained shut up in their strong- 
holds, depending upon their vassals and serfs for cultivating 
the soil, and to take up arms, or rather to buckle on armor, 
in their cause when attacked or when they wished to attack 
others. 

There was no one head which these haughty chiefs were 
compelled to obey, and in the quarrels which were continually 
arising because of real or imaginary aggression upon their lands 
or upon their rights and privileges, there was no arbiter — no 
established code of law or justice to which either side could 
appeal — and they were therefore in a continual state of petty 
warfare ; coveting each other's possessions and devastating 
without mercy what they could not ^conquer and appropriate. 
There were never a sufficient number who would rally round a 
prince and support him in subduing the others and enforcing 
obedience. All were ambitious to exalt and aggrandize them- 
selves, and the history of this period presents a series of the 
most revolting crimes and vices. Those who entitled them- 
selves the nobility, because they owned houses and lands, were 
ignorant, corrupt, and revengeful to the last degree, and their 
vices descended as certainly as their inheritance from father to 
son, from generation to generation. They had none of the 
simplicity which characterized the Slavonic races at an earlier 
period, and they had not acquired the refinement which com- 
merce and literature diffuse. They were in the transition state, 
which among all nations is sure to be one of corruption. 

Bat it is a vulgar proverb that " when things get to the 
worst they must mend," and historians in different languages say 
the same. We find it written by one who is called both elegaut 
and profound: "There is an ultimate point of depression as 
well a? of exaltation from which human affairs naturally return 



EISE AND DECAY OF FEUDALISM. 99 

in a contrary progress, and beyond which they never pass, either 
in their advancement or decline." When things become in- 
tolerable, there is a greater effort to retrieve them, and at the 
close of the tenth century it commences to dawn upon this dark- 
ness, and light and knowledge have been since steadily advancing. 
Science and literature had slumbered during all this period 
in the cells of monasteries ; and many a monk could not read 
the breviary he recited. There was no written language except 
the Latin, and this was confined to a few. There was no 
medium through which the people could acquire knowledge, and 
it was considered a most useless commodity to introduce among 
them ; but when they joined the standards of the crusaders 
and entered the land of luxury, and passed in their march the 
classic soil of Greece and Rome, there were no obstacles to 
prevent their seeing as clearly as the kings and knights who 
led them, and who alone expected to bring away honors and 
spoil. They went to rescue a land from infidels, and to possess 
it because they were Christians ; but as they advanced they 
were obliged to come to the humiliating conclusion that they 
were scarcely Christian or civilized themselves. There was a 
softness and refinement about Eastern manners which, blinded 
as they were by prejudice, they could not help seeing; and, 
coarse and rude as they were, they could not entirely resist its in- 
fluence. With what wonder they gazed upon the remains of art 
in Italian cities, and to eyes accustomed to Gothic architecture 
and the sombre hues of their dingy castles, how dazzling the 
gorgeous beauty of the Turkish capital. They thought it a 
duty to destroy the splendid palace of Saladin, because it was 
the abode of an unbeliever ; but they hesitated not to transfer 
to their uugenial clime its glowing treasures, and when they re- 
turned to revel once more within their knightly halls, they 



100 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

thought it no shame to adopt the more Christian etiquette of 
a Moslem court. 

The monarchs of Europe did not participate in the first 
crusade ; it was undertaken entirely by the knights and people, 
and not only aroused them from a lethargy in which they had slum- 
bered for centuries; but opened to them the fountains of know- 
ledge, and pointed out to them a new way by which they could 
elevate themselves and acquire power and influence. Courts and 
palaces were above their reach ; they did not dream of thrones 
or titles. But they learned that the delicate fabrics which 
they saw worn by Eastern beauties, were wrought and dyed by 
hands in nowise different from their own ; and that these were 
objects of exchange between nations. They learned the art 
and brought it home. 

But the nobles who enlisted in this strange war soon became 
embarrassed for money, and were obliged to sell their posses- 
sions, and princes were willing to buy them, as in this way 
their own influence and power were increased, and that of their 
barons not only diminished but destroyed ; as, if they lived to 
return, and come laden with treasure, they had lost their strong- 
holds and vassals, and would be no longer formidable. Thus 
power became gradually consolidated in the hands of a few, 
which was better, even though these few reigned not wisely, 
than the sway of hundreds of lawless marauders. 

The people of Italy were the first to take advantage of, and 
be benefited by, the new impetus given to commerce by the cru- 
saders. Their ports furnished supplies and transports, and as 
all who followed the standard of the cross were under the 
special protection of the church, those who aided them were 
granted special privileges and immunities, and those who should 
impede or annoy them, were threatened with her direct anathe- 



RISE AND DECAY OF FEUDALISM. 101 

mas. Documents are still extant in Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, 

which show the contracts made by these cities, with the princes, 

knights and nobles, who led their zealous hosts to conquest, and 

it was in noticing the result of receiving so much money in 

exchange for their commodities, that originated the first idea 

of general commerce with northern and western nations. 

As a consequence of their becoming more flourishing, various 

towns became more desirous of freedom, and of making laws 

suitable to their new condition, and of being relieved from the 

■ 
exactions of their feudal oppressors. Those who were their 

nominal rulers lived far away in France and Germany, and 
were glad to strengthen the allegiance of their subjects, and 
obtain money by granting their petitions, and thus were formed 
the first corporations or communities, with acknowledged rights, 
and a government in which the people had a voice. For not 
only had the barons held their immediate vassals in servitude, 
and bought and sold at will their serfs, but cities and villages were 
obliged to depend on them for protection, and humbly sue for 
every favor. They could not dispose of what their industry had 
acquired, without special permission — could not even select the 
guardians of their children, or make a will in their favor, in case 
of death, without the consent of their feudal lord, and could not 
marry, any more than a serf, without buying the privilege. 
When commerce opened to them new sources of wealth, they 
openly resisted in some instances, and finally succeeded in obtain- 
ing their freedom, and in others, as we have seen, purchased it 
of their king or emperor, who only thought of the present 
necessity, in relinquishing power for money, and had little idea 
of the ultimate results of this commercial spirit and desire of lib- 
erty. The holy wars continued during two centuries, and before 
they were finished the knights. and nobles began also to feel the 



102 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

want ol the money they had wasted on Arabian sands, and 
before the end of the last crusade, all the principal cities in 
Italy had by might or money obtained their chartered rights, 
and were evermore free from feudal oppression. France soon 
followed the example of Italy, and Louis le Gros took advantage 
of this new spirit among the inhabitants of towns, and volun- 
tarily granted them more than they asked, in order to create a 
power that should balance in favor of the crown against the 
nobles. These privileges were called charters of community, by 
which he enfranchised all the members, abolished all marks of 
servitude, and formed them into corporations or bodies politic, 
to be governed by magistrates and councils of their own nomi- 
nation. These magistrates had the right of administering jus- 
tice within their own precincts, of levying taxes, and training 
the militia who took arms for the sovereign ; and we shall after- 
wards see these burghers in continual strife with the nobles, in 
the cities of the Rhine, which then belonged to France. 

The example of France was next followed by Germany, and 
spread quickly over all Europe, Spain, England, Scotland, and 
all other feudal countries, soon exhibiting the happy effects of 
an institution that filled them with flourishing cities, and poured 
wealth into the coffers of princes, besides infusing it into all the 
channels of the nation. 

Commerce formed a new class in the community, and confer- 
red new distinctions, to which all could aspire, and thus, whole 
nations awoke to a new life. It was a consequence of a foolish 
enthusiasm and blind superstition, which the most far-sighted 
would not have predicted, but now who can tell how long 
Europe might have slumbered in ignorance, and been sunk in 
barbarism, had they not been aroused by a voice which they 



GROWTH OF FREE CITIES. 103 

believed divine, and seen in Peter the Hermit, an apostle whom 
they believed commissioned directly by Heaven ? 

For many years the Italians engrossed nearly all the trade 
between the western and eastern nations, and were the means 
of introducing the luxuries and comforts which soon became 
widely scattered in the rude homes of the north, and increased 
a taste for elegance, which had great influence in refining and 
softening the manners of the scarcely yet civilized lords of broad 
manors, who had long thought themselves first among princes. 
The Lombard merchants were invited to establish their manu- 
facturies in any part of Europe, and were taken under the 
special protection of the governments, which granted them 
privileges and exempted them from taxes, in order to induce 
them to come. 

It was soon after the holy wars that the mariner's compass 
was invented, and navigation being thus rendered more secure, 
the seas were soou covered with the little merchant fleets that 
brought the silks and spices of the East, to exchange for the 
coarser products of colder climes. A strange sensation it 
gives us to walk about in the streets that were alive with the 
bustle of trade and commerce long centuries before America had 
?ven a name. Hamburg and Liibeck were free cities before 
America was born, and in Bremen had been formed a society 
for the relief of the widows of seamen before the first ship had 
crossed the Atlantic. Those great cities in the new world were 
a wilderness when these were teeming with life and industry ! 
More and more wonderful our country seems to us when we 
think in how little time she has grown, and how far she has 
sped beyond those who have been many hundred years on the 
way. 

The first great commercial league originated in the northern 



104 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

ports of Germany, where the inhabitants were continually sub- 
ject to incursions from the barbarians across the channel, and 
their fleets exposed to the robber pirates, which infested all 
the borders. It became necessary to present to them a formid- 
able resistance, and for this purpose was formed the confed- 
eracy, termed the Hanseatic league, which was for mutual 
defence, first between the cities on the coast, and proved so 
beneficial, others prayed to be admitted, till there were eighty of 
the most flourishing and prosperous towns united in a sort of 
commercial brotherhood, which became so rich and formidable 
that kings and princes courted its favor. They established 
marts or ports of trade, which became the receptacles of the 
commodities of exchange from all countries, and were the first 
to institute formal regulations and a systematic plan, to govern 
all commercial intercourse. 

This was in the twelfth century, and many of these rules are 
still in force, though the league was long since dissolved and 
the hundred free cities have been reduced to four. In those 
days they deserved the appellation they acquired ; but in these 
there is little that deserves the name of liberty in their institu- 
tions. They did not advance with time, and in many instances 
the shackles which merchants imposed upon mechanics and in- 
ferior tradesmen, were not less oppressive than those they had 
experienced from the nobles ; and the decay of their prosperity 
may be traced to an unwillingness to* grant to others rights 
and privileges which they demanded for themselves. We have 
heard ship captains say that the laws concerning foreign vessels, 
and the harbor regulations, were not so liberal in German 
ports as in China ! and their commerce is crippled by what 
they consider a protection, but what really is the greatest 
detriment, as those who can trade more freely and be treated 



ANNUAL DINNER. 105 

more liberally in China will prefer a trade which takes them to 
her coast. 

Yet, as we said, before the first frail bark .had crossed the 
Atlantic, there was a society founded in Bremen for the relief 
of the widows of seamen ; though, in accordance with the 
spirit of those times, it was limited to the widows of captains 
and mates. A wealthy captain gave a sum at his death, as the 
commencement of a fund, and the anniversary of the day of its 
foundation was to be ever after celebrated by a dinner, at which a 
contribution was to be taken up, the proceeds of which were added 
to the fund, and the interest paid quarterly to the widows. 
Small houses were built for them, which they had rent-free, and 
though the sum is small which they receive, yet this, with what 
they can earn, enables them to live comfortably and re- 
spectably. 

It is curious that though the portrait of the founder of the 
institution is preserved, the name is lost. At first four new 
members were elected every year, two captains and two mer- 
chants ; but, as the third year after they are elected, the new 
members must provide the dinner at their own expense, it was 
found expedient to change this feature and elect annually nine, 
six merchants and three captains, in order that the burden may 
not be too heavy upon each as the numbers increase. The 
dinner takes place on the 17th of February, at two o'clock, and 
is arrayed in the style of the fourteenth century, having been 
preserved through all this time by a resolution to adhere to the 
primitive customs of the days when it commenced. The hall 
is the same that witnessed the first little circle of eight, and 
foaming tankards of beer are brewed for the occasion, from ex- 
actly the same materials and by the same process as was done 
three centuries ago, and would scarcely be tolerated by thn 

5* 



106 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

humblest Bauermann as his daily beverage in these days. The 
room is hung with the flags of all nations, and in the entrance hall 
are such emblems of the days of yore as make one quite recon- 
ciled to live in these degenerate times. A specimen of the 
frail barks which crossed the perilous seas, without compass or 
guide, is hanging over-head, and a veritable man, whom art and 
time have converted into a most hideous lookiug mummy, is sit- 
ting upright and holding the oars, which once paddled in " the 
salt sea foam." Monster fishes, of the same time-honored hue 
and texture, are suspended around ; and remnants of shattered 
ships and relics of ages gone, tell the sad story of " decay and 
change and death." 

Every member must have his Wappen, or coat of arms, and 
if the misfortune has happened that this testimony to the 
nobility of his family is lost, he is allowed to search for it in 
the book of heraldry, and not being able to recover the old, to 
select a new one, so that the walls are hung with every variety 
of ensign, designating to whom they belong. We should think 
some old baron would arise from his grave to prevent such a 
desecration as that a sea captain or a merchant should pretend 
to the honor of a true bom knight ; but we have not heard of 
any such demonstration. Perhaps they remember that the 
order of the Golden Fleece was instituted by Philip the Good, 
in honor of the weavers of Flanders, and adopted as the eusign 
of the city, because to them was owing its prosperity and 
wealth; though, we presume, no weavers were permitted to wear 
or carry a painted golden fleece. This would be conferring too 
great an honor upon a weaver. 

All gentlemen of distinction, and honorable strangers, are 
invited to this grand dinner (ladies not included), and the day 
we looked in upon the preparations there were two hundred 



ANNUAL DINNER. 107 

plates upon two long tables ; and what are these curious look- 
ing papers by the side of each ? They are an evidence of the 
civilization of the dark ages which we did not imagine to have 
existed. One contains salt and the other pepper ! They are 
folded tunnel-shape, three or four inches long and two in cir- 
cumference at the top, and hold a large teaspoonful of these 
condiments, each. Really it is far better than for each one to 
help himself with his own knife from one salt-cellar, as we often 
see done in these days of refinement and cultivation. 

There are bread and cakes too of the olden time, and 
the tall old-fashioned beer tankards staud at convenient dis- 
tances along the centre. 

The guests having all assembled in the ante-room, the Presi- 
dent of the day moves forward, crying : " Schaffen, Schaffen, 
unten und oben Schaffen /" which is the signal for all to march 
and for the dinner to be served. When seated, each drinks to 
the health of the one opposite, from the foaming tankard, 
making three bows, with a corresponding motion of the tankard? 
first straightforward and then diagonally to the right and left. 
The table service is of white ware, with blue edge, and in the 
centre of each plate and dish a wreath, within which is an 
anchor and the date 1789. 

The first course is soup, a kind of chicken broth, after which 
comes stockfish with butter sauce ; then boiled ham and 
smoked beef, with Sauerkraut and brown kohl ; thirdly, roast 
beef and veal, in immense joints and quarters, with potatoes ; 
and, lastly, nuts and rasins ; the whole finishing with coffee 
and cigars. No innovations are allowed ; no French cookery 
or flummeries of any kind ; not even silver forks. The plates 
are changed once ; but under each plate is a piece of brownish- 
white blotting-paper, with which each one wipes his own knife 



108 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

and fork, and very little service is rendered by attendants. We 
have wished a thousand times to know exactly how a dinner 
was served in the olden time, and now we have seen. How 
often have we wondered what were the substitutes for salt- 
cellars and napkins, among those who would naturally wish to 
be cleanly and observe some kind of ceremony at table, and 
surely these inventions are not to be despised. They were not 
prompted by a love of display ; but must have resulted solely 
from the instincts of refinement, and they availed themselves 
of the only aids the times could furnish. When the guests 
have finished dinner, they rise, and bowing to each other, and 
shaking hands, say: " Gesegnct die Mahlzeit" (blessed be 
the meal), and this is the custom at every dinner party in 
Germany. 

On a table at one end of the room are the instruments of 
navigation used before the compass and quadrant were known, 
and a man is taking the bearings, in the manner which the sailors 
did when these were used. Before separating, some national 
songs are sung, and before seven, these honest burghers have 
returned to their homes. 

We have met with nothing among the ancient or modern 
institutions of Germany that interested us more than this. 
We have never entered an old castle but we have wished there 
had been preserved something that would give us a tangible 
idea of the daily life of those who dwelt in them, and though 
a dinner is but one meal, and occupies but a little time, we 
have obtained from it a definite idea — a distinct picture, which 
we have obtained nowhere else. Gesegnet die Mahlzeit, say 
we to all who shall sit at this substantial board for ages to 
come, and may it then, as now, continue to tell the simple tale 
of the manners of ages gone. 



ANNUAL DINNER. 109 

It was in 1792 that the first ship sailed from Bremen to 
America, and not till then had any vessel traversed those seas 
of more than 400 tuns burthen. One would think they did 
not need compass or quadrant in such a commerce, and vessels 
used mostly to leave in the autumn and return in the spring. 
Thus captains who belonged to the society were not often 
present to partake of the dinner. 

The great centre of trade of the confederated cities, in the 
thirteenth century, was Bruges, in Holland, where were settled 
companies of merchants from seventeen kingdoms, and twenty 
foreign ministers had hotels within its walls. Here met to ex- 
change their friendly greetings the silks of Persia, the wools of 
England, the linen of Belgium, and the heavy merchandize of 
Hamburg ; and the little harbor was white with the fleets of 
Venice, Genoa, and Constantinople. But now there are only 
ruins to tell of its former grandeur, and with a population of 
only 50,000, where there should be a million, 15,000 are 
paupers. 

The flourishing state of these commercial provinces in Ger- 
many, induced Edward III., of England, to invite artisans from 
Flanders to settle in his dominions, that the wool which his 
subjects raised might also be manufactured by them, and as his 
sagacity had foreseen, they soon rivaled their teachers. 

In the novels of Sir Walter Scott, we often see these Flemish 
weavers alluded to, and see with what contempt they were 
looked upon by those who had been created nolle, by having 
spurs buckled to their heels, after some exploit of valor ; and this 
same spirit is rife everywhere in this old world. Commerce and 
trade were the refining and civilizing influences which awoke 
Europe from barbarism, without which her nobles and knights 
might to this day have been the ignorant and stupid boors they 



110 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

were for six centuries, and yet those engaged in trade and com- 
merce are still looked upon as beneath even the impoverished 
descendants of some haughty baron. We one day a^sed a lady 
what had been the profession of her father, and with much 
stammering and blushing she at last confessed that he was a 
merchant; but went on to say that her grandfather was of noble 
blood, but the new order of things and various misfortunes had 
reduced them to this humiliating position ! "We did not tell 
her that we had more respect for her merchant father than his 
knightly sires, as this would only have added to her miscon- 
ceived degradation ; but we smile a hundred times to hear 
" old families " boast of their long pedigree, and still disclaim 
all kith and kin and acquaintance with any who earn their 
bread by honest industry. J3ven the spirit of chivalry did not 
awake till after the crusades, and falsehood and every species 
of dishonor characterized this proud nobility. But in order 
to maintain commercial relations with one another, cities and 
countries must have laws and courts of justice, to which all 
must be subject, and rapine and murder must receive their 
reward, even though committed by dignitaries. Knights 
learned something of courtesy of the infidels they thought 
only of insulting, and a new standard of honor was set up. 
Humanity, gallantry, and fidelity were proclaimed as knightly 
virtues, and henceforth, cruelty in war became disgraceful ; the 
defence of the helpless, and truth to woman the means of 
winning the proudest laurels. 

Wherever we look in that age or in this, we see that it is 
the humble and useful arts to which mankind owe all their 
progression, and in which we must place our hope for the per- 
manency of civilization. The encouragement of the fine arts 
alone does not promote the comfort or true elevation of a 



CONDITION OF BAVARIA. Ill 

people. It is proverbial that only barbarians can produce the 
highest kind of poetry, and it has so far been true that only 
barbarians have produced the highest kind of beauty in painting 
and sculpture. The great artists of the olden time could 
neither read nor write, and in the cities and countries where art 
is in the most flourishing state, the masses of the people are in 
the greatest degradation. 

Louis of Bavaria has done most, in modern times, for the 
promotion of art ; and in his dominions the people are the 
most poor and wretched. Whilst all the other provinces of 
Germany have been devoting study, and time, and science to 
agriculture, the king of Bavaria has done nothing, and his 
peasantry are the poorest, the most in debt, and have the least 
money at command of those of any kingdom in Germany. 
While galleries on galleries have arisen, and palaces have 
multiplied on palaces — filled with pictures and statues, and 
frescoes, where the rich and idle may lounge, and travelers 
open their eyes to stare and wonder, the people are starving. 
They have toiled and drudged, been taxed and stripped of 
their clothing to gratify the taste of a few. We have read 
in a hundred books of travels of this same king of Bavaria, 
and seen him extolled as deserving, above all others, honor 
and glory, but we cannot help saying, as we look upon these 
three thousand pictures, they are painted with blood! Our 
readers will wonder what can be more wretched than the 
life we have portrayed in Saxony and Rhenish Prussia ; yet, 
in Bavaria it is more wretched still. It is here that taxation 
is most oppressive, and the fees of lazy officials most exor- 
bitant. Here the peasant's cot is literally a pig-sty, and as 
a species of serfdom still exists, the land is not so variegated 
with the little patches that betoken ownership among the 



112 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

poor, and more than three millions of acres ye.t remain not 
cultivated at all. Here the laws concerning marriage and 
property are so severe, that thousands cannot acquire sufficient 
to enable them to pay the priest and sheriff, and therefore live 
together without any form of marriage at all, and the illegiti- 
mate children exceed the legitimate in every district, if it is 
a right use of terms to call those illegitimate who are born of 
parents who live uprightly and virtuously all their lives, and 
conform to every law of God and a well-regulated community. 
Against whom are those parents sinning, who love one another 
and their children, with a singleness and devotion not elsewhere 
excelled, and remain true to each other through life, with a 
devotion which seems often less disturbed by bickerings and 
brawls than where a solemn and holy tie has bound them ? 
They are conscious that their respectability depends solely 
upon their merit and good conduct, and separations do not 
occur so frequently as among those who must be divorced. 
They feel that they are suffering unmerited wrong and dishonor, 
and only by mutual love and forbearance can it be endured. 
Their life is open and acknowledged. It is well known that 
inability alone prevents their conforming to the commands of 
Heaven and requirements of society, and it is often the case 
that they spend years in laying by every penny that govern- 
ment does not demand and imperative daily wants can spare, 
in order to procure the sanction of Church and State to their 
union, and pay the full price as soon as they are able. But 
we confess we think there will be darker sins exposed at the 
day of judgment than any of which these poor people are 
guilty. In Munich, the home of the arts, the homes of the 
people are most uncomfortable, and it is proverbial that they 
seldom invite straugers to enter their doors, they are so ashamed 



THE COMFORTS OF GERMANY. 113 

of the best accommodations they can offer. They have not 
the least idea of comfort, and the humblest class of mechanics, 
and even laborers in America, would not think such tene- 
ments habitable, as people of rank here eat and drink, and 
sleep in all their lives content. If you stay a week, you will 
sleep in a room bare of everything you have been accustomed to 
consider necessary to daily use. A rude pitcher, containing a 
pint of water will be thought sufficient for your ablutions, and 
such a convenience as a slop-jar has not entered into the 
catalogue of the chamber furniture of the highest dignitaries, 
and we venture to say there is but one in Germany, and 
that owned by an American lady, who sent to England, and 
paid ten dollars for one. You will have one towel a week, 
and one pair of sheets a month, with the upper one sewed to 
the quilt, as you will find it also in the common inns of Hun- 
gary and Wallachia. Table furniture and table etiquette will 
be such as would surprise almost any greenhorn of Yankee- 
land for its rudeness. Alas ! how little those who go abroad, 
and spend a day in one city and a day in another, staring at 
palaces and wondering at collections of fine arts, know of the 
lands they visit, and how little capable are they of judging of their 
own. These people who cannot furnish you with what you 
have deemed necessary to the common decencies of life, and 
have enjoyed without thinking of them, will parade you through 
Glyptotheques and Pinacotheques, by which barbarous names the 
king of Bavaria has christened his salons for the reception 
of pictures — lead you a promenade in public gardens, where 
you see plants and flowers of all climes, and hear the music of 
all the spheres, and then return to their homes, which they 
reach by ascending dark, filthy staircases, to sit upon un- 
cishioned chairs, walk upon uncarpeted floors md be lighted 



114 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

to feather-beds by tallow candles, and expect you to commend 
their superior refinement and civilization. We think with the 
author who says, it is very much like the civilization of the 
North American Indian, who paints his face and dresses in 
the skins of beasts. In Vienna you will find one presentable 
room, which is showy rather than comfortable, but all the 
rest are barbarously bare and coarse, and this we hear spoken 
of in the same terms by German ladies from the north, who 
are accustomed to the genuine comforts of a home, where the 
private arrangements are first in the household economy, and 
the showy salon the last ; yet these same Europeans go to 
America as exiles and fugitives, and talk in the most lamen- 
table strains of their sufferings and privations in a new coun- 
try, where they cannot have the luxuries and elegance to 
which they have been accustomed. An American gentleman, 
whose tastes for personal and private comfort have been culti- 
vated to a degree that is amusing in its fastidiousness, and who 
expected to find in Europe everything on a still finer scale, says 
he shall at least know what to say to these grumblers wheu 
he gets home. 



CHAPTER VII. 

GUILDS AND TRADES. 

In the laws which regulate citizenship, among the lower 
classes, and the proprietorship of workmen in the labor of their 
calling, we see still more evident the remnants of the days 
when darkness covered the land ; when the people were few 
and their wants easily supplied. 

Rivalry and competition are not considered the "life of 
trade," nor freedom the ground-work of a nation's prosperity. 
Every profession, trade and occupation, is restrained, or as they 
call it, protected, till there is no possibility of progress, no ani 
mation, and no encouragement for invention. Each little statt 
and principality is antagonistic to the other, and those who are 
citizens of one cannot be citizens of another, without great for- 
malities and paying an exorbitant price. If a young girl, born 
in one duchy, removes to another as servant or with her parents, 
she cannot marry a citizen of the place to which she has re- 
moved, without paying a sum which few among the lower 
classes can command, and this is why we see in so many in- 
stances young men married to old women, who have by a for- 
mer husband acquired the means of purchasing the citizenship 
of a second. A young man cannot be promoted to the honor 
of master-workman in another city or village than where he 
was born, without the same formalities; and in this instance too, 

115 



116 PEASANT LIFE EST GERMANY. 

they will often marry a woman whose husband has been mas- 
ter-workman, and thus conferred upon her the privilege of pro- 
moting another. A woman with this advantage will offer her- 
self to a young man in the factory or shop where he has 
served his apprenticeship, and if he declines her proposals, he 
will be dismissed from service. More than once we have seen 
young men in this predicament consent to become the hus- 
bands of women twice as old as themselves, because the only 
alternative was poverty and disgrace. 

In one or two principalities within the last year, they have 
for the first time made some changes in these laws, so that skill 
may have its reward wherever it is exercised, and the com- 
munity the benefit of the knowledge and perfection to which 
any artist has arrived, no matter under whose government he 
has served. 

In many instances, the rules which govern artisans originated 
with themselves, and the protection which government affords 
them is demanded by the corporations or guilds to which they 
belong. The history of these guilds is the clue to many strange 
customs, which strike so harshly upon modern ears and are so 
at variance with modern life, but which harmonized well with 
the times and people who instituted them. 

It is said that even before the Romans invaded Germany, 
there existed among the people associations for mutual pro- 
tection, which were denominated Waffenbruderschafte, or 
brotherships in arms, and the members were styled guild 
brothers and oath brothers, because they were united for mutual 
benefit and protection. One company consisted of ten, and 
were called tien-manner tola. The expression to keep tally, 
among children and uneducated people, is derived from this old 
German guild, and has come through England to America, and 



GUILDS AND TRADES. 117 

is heard among all who speak the Saxon tongue. These asso- 
ciations were introduced into Great Britain by Alfred the 
Great, for convenience in governiug and preparing for defence. 
Every ten belonged to another company consisting of ten times 
ten, or a hundred, who held their own assemblies for adminis- 
tering justice. In England every county was divided into hun- 
dreds, for both civil and military purposes, and these ten times 
ten were again a part of a community numbering ten times a 
hundred, which made in Germany a Gau or district. These 
terms still 'ajpply, as we see, in the Rhine Gau, Bris Gau, etc. 
When cities were founded, and those who first formed corpora- 
tions and obtained privileges grew rich and powerful, after the 
manner of men, they remembered not their poverty, and the con- 
dition from which they had arisen. When others fled to them 
for protection, and asked of them the rights which they were 
so long in obtaining of those higher than themselves, they 
treated them with contempt, as beneath them, and instead of 
aiding them to rise, placed every obstacle in their way, and 
made new laws to humble and oppress them. They termed 
themselves the Geschlechter or genteel classes, and were the same 
that became afterwards in England the Gentry. 

The new comers were obliged to work at any trade that 
offered them recompense, and engaged in menial service, often 
to those whom they hated, and thus a bitter feeling was engen- 
dered in the whole as a class, against those above them as a 
class, which widened the breach of separation. The original 
freeholders elected the officers of government, formed guilds 
from which the handicraft class were excluded, and married 
exclusively among themselves. But as the humbler classes 
increased in numbers, they also formed guilds, each trade by 
itself, which afterwards combined, so as to become formidable 



118 PEASANT LIFE IN GEEMANT. 

to the merchants, who in their wealth were not less tyrannical 
than their feudal lords, and demanded also their rights at the 
point of the sword. An open and bloody war ensued, in which 
the handicraft guilds were victorious, and obtained of their op- 
pressors the right of a voice in the election of officers of gov- 
ernment, and of being freeholders, with the same privileges as 
merchants. 

Next followed rules which were to govern each guild, and to 
which all must conform in order to be protected. One of these 
was, that each young man, after having served his* apprentice- 
ship, must travel three years in order to perfect himself, and 
then must show by some well executed piece of workmanship, 
that he was fitted to practise his trade ; and when he had done 
this, a certificate from the master of the guild testified to his 
capacity and fitness, and with this he could procure an engage- 
ment. For six centuries this has been the custom, and is 
demanded not the less strictly now than when it was instituted. 
On every high road these wandering journeymen may be seen, 
with their packs, and generally two and two, traversing the 
whole country, demanding in each place work, and when 
obtaining it, stopping for a specified time, and then marching on 
to do the same in another. At the time when it originated, it 
was probably a very good custom, as in each place they could 
learn something new, and acquire much information which 
there were no books at that time to supply. But it has been 
done till the particulars of every handicraft are as well known 
in one place as another, and all the shops of Germany have 
kept up this mutual exchange till everything in mechanics has 
become reduced to a terrible sameness, and there is not enough 
of variety in any art to allow the gratification of individual 
taste. In every house from the Black Sea to the Baltic, from 



GUILDS AND TRADES. 119 

the Volga to the Rhine, may be seen the same tables, chairs, 
sofas — the same knives, plates and candlesticks — the same door 
handles, window-fastenings, flower-pots, brooms, brushes, mops, 
and dishcloths, all of the same pattern. If they would spend a 
small portion of the time in some other country, they would 
learn more that would be useful in their trade, and improve 
more in manners and general intelligence. But this would be 
more expensive, as they wander through their native land under 
the protection of their guilds, and working their way with the 
extra expenditure of only a few dollars a year. Yet if they 
spent half the time steadily at work in one place, and with the 
money they earned, traveled or studied energetically the other 
half, it would be better, and better still to stay at home entirely, 
for most of them, than to saunter about as they do. They are 
often seen begging, holding out their hands and running after a 
carriage, like the poor children in great cities, and manifest no 
shame when repulsed. A strange sight it would be in America 
to see a strong young man, with a good trade, strolling through 
the streets and asking alms of passers by ! 

With these guilds originated the custom in England and 
America of binding out apprentices, to be for a certain time at 
the service and disposal of their masters, but though with us 
the laws concerning them have been much ameliorated, and 
their condition greatly improved, in Germany all the barbarous 
usages concerning such engagements are still in full force. If 
a gentleman wishes a house built in any place he must employ 
the master builder, whom the law and the guild authorize to 
superintend building. He may be old, and what is worse, old- 
fashioned, with all manner of notions which belong to another 
century, and perhaps to a period three centuries past, and 
quite unfit to construct a house according to modern ideas of 



120 PEASANT LIFE LN" GERMANY. 

comfort and beauty ; yet he must be employed, as long as he is 
supported by the guild. One of his journeymen may be au 
enterprising young man, who has profited by his travels, and 
would like to display his genius and exercise his skill, but 
should any one propose to him to build the house, he would not 
dare to attempt it, as the result would be persecution by the 
guild, punishment by the law, and ruin to all his future hopes. 
He must go plodding on in the same old way, as must every one 
else, in every trade ; and while these things remain, all Germany 
will go plodding on, and houses continue to be built after the 
model which Frederic the Great furnished, upon the principle 
of putting as many in as small space as possible, to the end of 
time. 

Guilds are divided into nine or ten different kinds, some of 
which are peculiar to cities, and some to villages — some termed 
limited and others unlimited, also close and exclusive, fine and 
coarse, and in all different ranks according to the departments 
to which the workmen belong. No one can establish a busiuess 
for himself without leave, or sell anything on his own account, 
and only so many masters of each trade are allowed in one place. 
When a young man has finished his apprenticeship, all the mem- 
bers of the guild meet to hear the result of his examination, and 
if satisfactory, he is pronounced free by the guild master ; yet 
he is ever subject to the rules of the guild, and when he sets 
out on his travels, must have a certificate of birth and various 
particulars concerning his time of service, with rules of his guild, 
and any resolutions with reference to his destination and time 
of absence. Each one must have a passport from the police, and 
dozens are sometimes seen waiting at the police offices for the 
necessary signatures, that enable them to go from village to 
village in „ their fatherland, without danger of imprisonment ! 



GTTCLDS AND TRADES. 121 

But the paying of the fee is thus sometimes avoided, by their 
standing in a row and passing the, sum from one to the other 
as they leave the box, making one dollar answer for twenty. 

Among some, a fund is formed by the annual payment of a 
certain sum, to support those who cannot find employment 
whilst they are seeking it; and those who belong to the exclusive 
guilds do not receive those who are only members of the others, 
and those of the fine and delicate handicrafts associate not with 
those of the rough and coarse. Each has its rules, and those 
who do not conform are excluded, and could not independently 
find an employer, however excellent they might be in any 
department. 

In all large towns there is an inn for the journeymen of each 
particular handicraft, to which they immediately resort on enter- 
ing the place, and deposit their certificates whilst they go forth 
in search of work, which they do by calling at each shop where 
their particular species of labor is performed, and offering their 
services. When any one is engaged, his credentials are first 
examined, and if satisfactory, he takes his place immediately 
among the workmen, and remains the time specified, when he 
again shoulders his pack and sallies forth. 

The inn of each handicraft is known by the sign, which is a 
boot if belonging to the boot-maker's guild, and a watch if 
belonging to the watch-maker's — a horse-shoe for a smith, and a 
barrel for a cooper. In a village or small town, where there 
can only be supported one inn, these different signs will be hung 
over as many different benches, in one room, and then it often 
happens that those of different guilds and trades meet in their 
wanderings, and many are the adventures they have to relate of 
what they have seen in the house and by the way. 

In country places where there are many of the same handi 
6 



122 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

craft, and no theatres or other places of amusement, these 
young men spend Sunday afternoon and evening in their inn, 
drinking, smoking and singing, in a way that none making any 
pretensions to respectability would think of doing in America. 
We have often seen it stated, that rowdyism is never to be seen 
in Germany; but those who say it judge only by what they 
see in their hurried travels, where every other man is a police 
officer, and order maintained by the strictest governmental 
police. 

While stopping in a village in Southern Germany, we several 
times looked into the salons frequented by the Guild brothers, 
and more than once, spent several hours in their midst. Our 
traveling companion was a young peasant girl, who had friends 
among the villagers, and by them we were invited to be present 
at their meetings. The sisters and sweet-hearts of the young 
men go also, and though a young man could not call to see a 
young girl in her father's house, she may go alone in the even- 
ing to these meetings, and stay till nearly morning, drinking, 
dancing and singing without reproach. They seat themselves 
around a long table, and each calls for a bottle of wine, when, 
filling their glasses, they reach forward and clinking them against 
each other, drink to the pleasure of the evening. Afterwards 
a song is sung, and when they have become excited, the dancing 
commences, and is accompanied by the grossest familiarity of 
manners ; boisterous mirth, and such rowdyism, as would only 
be seen among a class many grades lower in America. These 
were members of the fine and delicate handicraft's guild, a class 
that in America would be attending lectures, and consider them- 
selves gentlemen. Some of them, too, are musicians, which we 
consider an elevating profession; at least, as placing those who 
practise it above coarse and vulgar sprees ; but in Germany, one 



GUILDS AND TRADES. 123 

must become very eminent before he is allowed to step out of 
his rank, and whilst he remains in it, must be hail fellow well 
met with his comrades. 

We remained till twelve o'clock a witness of this scene, and 
were told they would not disperse till morning. The next day 
we called at the houses of some whom we had met the night 
before, and found the young men sick, and not able to work. 
" Always sick on Monday," said the father ; and with a tone 
and expression that indicated no dissatisfaction or fear of evil 
consequences. This was their amusement, a part of their life, 
and as necessary as their labor. We went afterwards to the 
factory where they worked, and found only a few, and they 
looking pale and languid, and all ready to confess that they 
were suffering from the effects of their dissipation. Yet they 
grow old without becoming drunkards, as would be the case in 
America. They are not disgraced in the eyes of the commu- 
nity, and are doing nothing which their parents disapprove. 
Often the father and mother go in for an . hour to share their 
mirth, and the clinking of glasses is louder than ever to give 
them welcome. Though wine is cheap, it must cost quite a 
sum for each during the year, and make sensible inroads upon 
wages that do not amount to more than $150 or $200 a year, 
to say nothing of the loss of time, where two days in seven are 
given up to amusement. 

We afterwards met in the cars a young man who had be- 
longed to the same guild, but had gone to America a few years 
before, and when we asked him if he drank wine and beer as 
freely there as he had done in his native village, he said : " Oh, 
no, it would not be respectable. The first year or two I did 
just the same, but I fouud it would not do j besides, I could 
not bear it, my health suffered." " No," he continued ; " I 



124 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

have not spent an evening out of the house for two years, except 
at a lecture or in some family ; and would not be seen once in 
such places as young men meet in here every week or day." 
He had been absent six years, and had returned to see his 
friends, but nothing would tempt him to live again in Germany, 
dearly as he loved his fatherland. In America, he could do 
what he pleased, and his position depended upon himself. This 
was all he wanted, the privilege of being and doing what he 
was capable of, and then to be judged by what he had done. 
From how many have we heard the same, and never from the 
lips of peasant man or woman anything but blessings on Amer- 
ica ; " the home of the exile, and the asylum of the fugitive." 
But the hatred of the higher classes is intense and bitter 
towards everything American. We have not met an educated, 
cultivated German, whose good breeding or politeness restrained 
him from expressing this feeling, if he entertained it, who con- 
sidered it any breach of courtesy to pour into our ears any 
amount of truth or falsehood concerning our country that he 
happened to believe himself. " Does not your brother like 
America ?" we asked of one, whose kinsman had resided there 
many years. " He likes it so well, mat he counts the days and 
hours till he can come back here to live." 

" Why did he go, and why does he stay ?" 

11 He went to make a fortune, and stays only till he can 
accomplish it." But it did not occur to the gentleman that in 
this very sentence he was bearing good testimony to the coun- 
try he was maligning. But it is the case with many ; they go 
to America to make money, and come back here to enjoy it ; and 
it is quite true that many species of enjoyment are far more 
abundant and accessible in , the old world than in the new. 
Servants are cheaper, and housekeeping for ladies much easier, 



GUILDS AND TRADES. 125 

and theatricals, music, and beautiful pleasure-gardens within 
the means of all. 

It is often said to us, "You have no musicians or artists in 
America. Your people have no time for anything but to make 
money." But they find time to pay a good deal to those who 
go from here to amuse them, and the music they bear is as 
good as is to be heard by the public here, for the best artists go 
there, but they have to pay more for it. 

It is because these guilds prevent all rivalry and competition, 
that young men have so much time to devote to music. No 
exertion procures them more wages or a higher position in their 
trades, so they have no motive for rising early and sitting up 
late to perfect themselves in their handiwork. While, if they 
can become sufficiently skillful in music to merit a government 
place, they are fixed for life. Every court has its theatre, and 
those who belong to it a salary ; so that there are sixty-Jive state 
theatres in Germany, always open, besides those which are only 
occasional in country towns; and connected with these, in the 
enjoyment of definite and permanent pay, 1,273 musicians, 
and 3,834 persons connected with the stage in various ways. 
Among these are 1,224 n#rie actors, 229 female dancers, 911 
female actors, 219 ballet dancers. Those who have a fixed 
salary, receive a pension in old age, or after they are disabled 
in any way from performing ; and to support these theatrical 
establishments, the whole people are taxed. The peasantry, 
however distant from court, must pay towards supporting the 
king's theatre, though not once in their lives can they ever 
enter one. The price of admission is not half what it is in 
America, and a few cents admit one at any time to the public 
gardens in the suburbs of cities, where are a series of concerts 
from May to September ; and where one is regaled with the 



126 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

finest productions of Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven. But 
those" who think the people thus privileged are, as a whole, more 
intelligent, refined, and cultivated in other respects, than some 
who perhaps never heard an exquisite piece of music in their 
lives, are mistaken. The same number of people, from the 
same classes, gathered together for any purpose in the suburbs 
of Boston, New York, or Philadelphia, would exhibit feelings 
as high-toned, and manners as polished, as any which these 
courtly circles send forth, though they may not know a march 
from a gallopade, or a waltz from an oratorio. But in America 
there can be no assembly of any sort without a mixture of 
all classes, so that to a European it seems a vulgar herd, as he 
has never been accustomed to look upon such a sight, and he 
knows nothing about distinguishing one kind from another in 
such a mass. No peasant would think of entering a garden or 
salon in Europe, except to serve or sell something, while in 
America the humblest plough-boy may go and stand and sit 
where he will, provided he pay the price. An European sees 
everywhere the coarse and fine mixed up together, or rather 
sees this coarse element, and contrives to shut his eyes to the 
fine, and then says there is nothing but coarseness to be seen in 
the land. 

The Scotch have been much longer a people than the 
Americans, yet they have not to this day theatres, and have 
attained to no eminence in music or any of the fine arts ; yet 
who would not think it as desirable and honorable to be a 
Scotchman as a German or Italian ? Not that music, painting 
and sculpture do not require and exhibit the highest order of 
talent in those who cultivate them ; but they do not require or 
exhibit various other virtues which place their possessors as 
high in the scale of civilization and refinement. • 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FARMERS AND FARMING VILLAGE HOMES EDUCATION. 

We hare had many evil communications to make, but we 
shall also have many that are good, and not the least inter- 
esting to ourselves, nor the least honorable to the people, are 
the agricultural details and statistics. Such industry we have 
never seen as in Germany, nor such results of industry, and a 
book concerning the people, written to be read by the people, 
must not pass by the farms, the vineyards, and the gardens. 

When the land was given to the people and divided into so 
small portions, a peculiar kind of culture became necessary, 
in order to make it fulfill its mission — that of supplying the 
people with food. The ploughs and horses, and expensive 
implements, which could be profitably employed by large 
farmers, would be too expensive upon the little patches of 
small proprietors, and we see, therefore, in some districts the 
whole country tilled like a garden, with spade, and hoe, and 
rake, and in the improvements which have been made in 
agriculture, and the perfection to which it has been brought, 
the people have not been left entirely to themselves. It has 
been reduced to a science, and a department made for it in 
universities. Agricultural schools have been established, and 
an annual Congress instituted, to which all who are interested 
in such matters are invited, to discuss projects and give the 
result of experiments. 

127 



128 PEASANT LIFE IN GEKMANY. 

The first of these was held at Leipsic, in 1820, and had only 
nineteen members. This, it will be seen, was just one year 
before the final enactment which entirely abolished serfdom. 
They have been continued ever since with increasing interest, 
alternating among the principal cities, awakening interest, and 
extending their influence, till they number many thousand 
members, and their example has been followed till there are 
several hundred different societies for promoting agriculture, 
and kindred objects. 

In Nassau there are 824 rural communes or villages, and 
when the society meets, there are assembled representatives 
from each village, who are expected to give the required infor- 
mation concerning the state of every different culture, and 
are particularly questioned in public by a committee, who ask 
sixty questions — whether the commune is upon hillsides, or in 
valleys, what is most cultivated, how the cattle are managed, 
and the lands watered, etc., etc. Statements are then com- 
pared, and advice given as to changes and improvements. 
There is also in every village a nursery of fruit trees, to experi- 
ment upon the best kind of fruits, and to supply grafts which 
have been proved the most successful ; and there are in nearly 
all these villages a superior cla,ss of peasant farmers, who take 
an interest in all these improvements, and hold meetings among 
themselves to talk of village and farming interests. 

We have not attended these meetings, but we have seen 
these honest farmers, and partaken of their goodly fare, and 
have never seen finer specimens of character, or more genuine 
refinement of manners than in some of these village homes, 
which seemed to us unaccountable, so in contrast were the 
homes themselves to all that had been ordinarily associated in 
our minds with true elevation of mind and delicacy of feeling. 



VILLAGE HOMES. 129 

To one who has been accustomed to New England villages, 
those of Nassau, and of the interior of Germany generally, 
strike one as little better than a nest of Indian wigwams. The 
houses stand close to the street, and close together, or sepa- 
rated only by narrow, dark, and dirty alleys, which have been 
just as dark and dirty for centuries. Not a foot of land is 
left for garden or grass plat, and instead of which we find the 
cowyard, and are often obliged to walk throngh.it, in order to 
reach the door. Within will be one little room that looks 
tenantable, and this will contain a bed, a settle, a few chairs, 
a long, bare wooden table, which is never moved, and which is 
used for meals, for work-table, and for anything for which it 
may be rendered convenient. There will be also a clock, 
some pictures of the virgin and the saints, a cross, and other 
things which denote the religion of the people, but whom we 
have found neither bigoted nor ignorant, in the usual accep- 
tation of these terms. 

The kitchen is a room some ten or fifteen feet square, and 
so dark that we can scarcely distinguish one person from 
another, and opens on one side into the stable, and on the 
other into the stable-yard, and looks a place unfit for pigs to 
feed, much less for human beings to cook their food. The 
sleeping-rooms are above, and have in each two beds, as 
such a curiosity as a double bed is not to be found in Ger- 
many. In the humblest cot, among the most miserably poor, 
no two members of the family, of any relationship, occupy the 
same bed. They are all very narrow, and the sheets aud 
quilts are made to correspond. One or two feather-beds are 
made up light and round on the outside, and a neat white or 
colored spread goes over the whole. The floors are white and 
sanded. 

6* 



130 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

If we are here to breakfast, we shall have coffee and black 
bread and rolls, and if we take breakfast in any family in 
Germany, high or low, we shall have the same, and should be 
considered very gross and uncivilized, if we should ask for 
anything else. At ten o'clock we shall have offered us bread 
and butter, and some slices of cold ham or beef, and this, also, 
is the universal custom, but as far as grossness and refinement 
are concerned, we are not able to understand why ten is not 
as unsuitable an hour as eight at which to eat meat. 

If we dine, we shall have a snow-white cloth upon the long 
table, and a plate to each person, and knife and fork to each 
plate ; one large pint tumbler full of water, out of which each 
will drink till it is empty, when it will be filled again, and a 
great loaf of black bread, from which each will cut a slice 
when he wants it. The first course will be boiled beef, what in 
New England is called corned beef, and this also is the dish uni- 
versal in Germany ; with it we eat bread. After this we have 
some kind of fried meat and boiled potatoes, and perhaps cab- 
bage, which is also another dish universal. Cabbage is the great 
staple among all classes, but there are several kinds, white, red, 
brown, and cauliflowers. Every dish has a clean wholesome look, 
and each one helps himself from each dish which is passed, with 
a spoon, or knife and fork upon it. For dessert, we have a kind 
of cake, made very thin with plums, which are called Zwetchen, 
placed in rows close together all over the top, and baked in large 
tins three feet long. When done, it is cut in strips and arranged 
cobhouse fashion upon plates. If it is fruit time we shall also 
have fruit, apples, pears, plums and grapes. 

There are no indications of poverty, but on the contrary of 
the greatest abundance, and the family are worth perhaps eight 
or ten thousand dollars. Besides their farm, they have a brick- 



FARMERS AND FARMING. 131 

making establishment, keep cows and pigs, and have plenty 
of geese, hens and chickens. All these animals are in pens, 
and do not see the light of day from year to year, yet they look 
fat and sleek. Green fodder is cut daily for the cows during 
summer, yet we cannot help thinking the milk lacks the sweet, 
fresh taste of that to which we have been accustomed, where 
the cows crop the green grass as it grows, and drink from the 
clear pebbly brook. 

But this custom of keeping the cows and sheep in stalls all 
the year, has been generally adopted throughout Germany, from 
its economy. A hundred years ago, four-fifths of the land was 
devoted to grains, and one-fifth to grasses or forage ; and now 
only one-fifth is devoted to grains, and the other four-fifths to 
forage. By this reverse, the number of cattle is multiplied, and 
thus the quantity of manure increased with which to enrich the 
land, and continually renew its capacity for produciug. Grains 
also derive less nourishment from the air than foraging plants, 
and therefore exhaust the soil more entirely for their original 
support, and do nothing towards repaying the debt. Grasses 
live more upon the air, and leave a richer decayed substance to 
add to the value of the soil. 

Very little space is devoted to grazing, because the same ex- 
tent of surface will support ten times the number of cattle if 
devoted to clover, with which they are stall fed. An acre, it 
is said, will be scarcely sufficient for one sheep in pasture, whilst 
it will support twenty if sown with the best of clover, and ten 
with that which is called Spanish, and is considered only half 
as good. The soil of England has been increased two-thirds 
in value by this system since the middle of the 18th century ; 
und Holland and Belgium have extensively adopted the same. 

So we must be resigned to what seems a cruel bondage foi 



J 32 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

the animals, and detracts infinitely from the beauty of the land- 
scape, if both man and beast are really in a more thriving 
condition thereby ; for the earth must be made to yield to its 
utmost to supply the wants of the fast increasing human family, 
and sheep and cows must patiently be restrained of their liberty, 
and submit to individual discomfort for the good of the whole! 
Exactly how they feel about it we do not know, but very wist- 
fully they looked out from their dark cells as we opened the 
door, and the voices of the lambkins were pitiful, as they plead 
for room to skip upon the green. That they do not pine unto 
death, is proved by their number having been quadrupled in 
the last seventy years. 

But we have not heard of any benefit that led us to be re- 
signed to these horrible manure yards under every window, and 
do not see how the value is increased by any such juxta-position 
with human olfactories. Yet we have learned very interesting 
facts which would have escaped our observation if they had 
been farther off. So important is this branch of husbandry, 
that scientific engineers are employed to construct trenches for 
receiving all the waste juices of the house and barn, and any- 
thing that can enrich the soil, is as carefully preserved as the 
crumbs of the most costly food, and valued as silver and gold. 
We remember often in New Bagland, to have seen the only 
yard where the cattle could perambulate, one vast pond, ancT 
when it became necessary to remove it, men were employed 
days in dipping it with pails. But from these trenches it is 
(kawn by means of a suction pipe, some twenty feet long, and 
three or four inches in diameter, one end of which rests in the 
water, and the other connects with a large hogshead which 
- stands in a cart, and which a man fills in a few minutes with 



FARMERS AND FARMING. 133 

apparently little effort, and certainly with less deleterious effects 
to himself and pantaloons. 

But whilst he was doing this, a young girl was standing bare- 
foot, up to her knees in a manure heap, digging with a pronged 
shovel, and filling another cart, which she drove to the field, 
and we suppgse unloaded when she arrived. She was hired out 
for the year to do any work about the house or farm, and re- 
ceived fourteen dollars for a full year's service -of this kind ! 
and whenever we have been in the country, anywhere in Ger- 
many, we have seen women employed in the same way, which 
is said to be made necessary by the law which requires so great 
a proportion of the men to be lounging in soldiers' barracks. 
Woman is thus degraded from her true position ; and we need 
not describe the condition of the homes where women spend 
half their time in the field. When they work as hard, and do 
the same things, they are not treated as the equals of their lords. 
Often they walk and drive the oxen, with a genuine thrust and 
flourish of the goadstick, while the men are sitting at their ease 
in the cart, smoking, and perhaps swearing at their teamsters. 
We once saw a man and his wife going home from the city, 
where they had been to make purchases ; and she had upon her 
back a box some three feet square, and a basket as large, and 
heavy laden, in her hands, while he carried nothing, but beat 
•and scolded her the whole length of the street where our vision 
extended, if she lagged or complained of weariness, which she 
often did with the tears streaming down her cheeks. But this 
did not surprise us so much as the stoical indifference with 
which a lady gazed upon the sight, as a matter of no conse- 
quence, because they were 'peasants, and it was a comlnon occur- 
rence. 

That those who grow rich and lay up some thousands of dol- 



134 PEASANT LIFE IN GEEMANY. 

lars should still feel no ambition to fit up and make convenient 
and pleasant their habitations, seems at first very mysterious ; 
but we have to remember that they have been yet scarcely half 
a century out of slavery — a state in which they had not the 
means nor the power to improve their condition. When they 
became owners of the soil, and could act for themselves, they 
were like grown children, with no experience and no observa- 
tion to aid them in their new life. They could neither read nor 
write, and had no knowledge of business. To possess even a 
little sum of money, to do with as they pleased, seemed per- 
haps to them the climax of happiness ; and to spend it in per- 
sonal comforts would scarcely occur to them, when they had not 
seen this done by the greatest lords in the land. They had no 
idea of a comfortable or pleasant home, because they had 
never seen one. A castle is a very romantic affair, crowning a 
distant hill-top, and associated with hundreds of years of history, 
chivalry, and romance ; but in itself, it is a dreary, desolate* 
comfortless shell ; for the wealth of the most powerful noble 
would not enable him to furnish a hundred rooms in even a hab- 
itable manner. There is without a great parade of walls, of 
Gothic, or Grecian, or Italian architecture, and lofty towers, 
reaching to the skies ; and within there is utter barrenness, 
showing that those who occupied it were unacquainted with the 
most common wants and gratifications of civilized life. Wf 
have not yet seen a castle, inhabited or uninhabited, that be- 
tokened so high a state of civilization, refinement, and taste, in 
al^ its arrangements, as the majority of village cottages in New 
England. 

Besides, when the serfs were made owners of the soil, ana to 
be a land-owner gave no marvelous distinction, those who had 
hitherto enjoyed it did not wish to live side by side with those 



EDUCATION. 135 

to whom they were thus leveled, and 'did not remain in the coun- 
try. The peasants were left entirely to themselves. For many 
years they could not travel to learn the improvements of other 
lands ; they had no examples to excite their ambition, and con- 
sidering themselves infinitely blessed in their new condition, and 
not knowing that it needed to be, or could be, made better, 
were infinitely content. 

In America, if there is one family in a village more wealthy than 
the rest, and able to indulge in the luxury of travel, and with 
means of higher education and cultivation than those around, we 
immediately see the evidences of superiority in their home: there 
is a beauty of finish about the house, articles of taste in the par- 
lor, of convenience and comfort in the kitchen, which are imme- 
diately observed, and, by those who have the means, copied. 
Thus the whole becomes elevated, and so certainly that there 
cannot possibly exist gradations in rank for any length of 
time. 

It is not from the mere fact that they live under a Eepublican 
or Democratic form of government that this equalization exists. 
In England the poor man may also become a peer ; and there 
are before him constant examples that incite him to effort. But 
on the Continent there are neither example nor reward. 

The house which we have described belonged, as we said, to 
^peasant farmer, who exhibited in all his manners and deport- 
ment an innate dignity and refinement that we do not often see 
among born and bred gentlemen. If he had been educated in 
court, he would have been truly courtly ; yet he had lived to 
<the age of sixty-five years in this hovel without thought of 
change, and had never in his life seen a better house than his 
own. But a son who had been four years in America returned 
to visit his birth-place ; and the first thing he did was to paper 



136 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

the walls of the little parlor and the sleeping-rooms, and add 
many things to give a comfortable appearance to the house. 
He had learned, and showed that he only needed to learn in 
order to appreciate and act. 

Yet in a village like this, and among these people, there is a 
decided village aristocracy, though we cannot ascertain very 
definitely upon what it rests its foundations. Money does not 
seem to be the criterion, nor a particular business, though both 
these have a little influence here, as they have elsewhere, the 
world over. That respectability, according to the universal stand- 
ard, is taken into the account, we learn by one family consid- 
ering it a lowering of themselves to associate with another 
upon which fifteen years back there rested some imputation of 
disreputable conduct. Whether this would have been remem- 
bered if the persons had not remained poor, we have no means 
of knowing, but presume, as is seen in the most moral and 
religious communities, wealth and prosperity might have blot- 
ted out their sins. Their crime was stated to be, having com- 
mitted the before-hand sin ; and the priest, who was of course a 
Catholic, not only severely reprimanded them, but was a long 
time in consenting to make them " honest people" by uniting 
them in the holy bonds of wedlock. We give the incident as 
an illustration of manners and morals, which will be creditable 
to pastor and people ; it proves that there is a high mofcil 
standard at least ; and we have no reason for doubting that it 
is as real, and has as much regard paid to it as in any other 
community. 

The revelations of Luther, and other reformers, concerning 
the Catholic priesthood, exhibited them so corrupt and fallen, 
that however different they may have become, or however 
great the number of exceptions, they have all to this day had 



EDUCATION. 137 

to bear the reproach which the monks of the fourteenth 
century brought upon their brethren and upon their order. 
But the Reformation not only reformed those who came out and 
were separate, but those who remained members of the " Holy 
Catholic church." At present we cannot learn that they are 
as a class either rich or corrupt, and in little villages of a popu- 
lation of two thousand inhabitants it must be easily known if 
they are. Our inquiries were often among those who had 
become entirely weaned from the church in which they were 
educated, and had no motive for representing either priest or 
church as better than they really were. 

We are in danger, perhaps, of forgetting that the Romish 
church became corrupt, and it is possible that churches having 
the name of reformed may in the course of time become also cor- 
rupt, especially those which are connected with the state, and 
form part of its machinery. The Catholic church was always 
democratic in this respect — that its favors were bestowed 
equally upon the high and humbly born — birth seldom conferred 
any distinction, and wealth was not a necessary passport to its 
honors. But the new Prussian church is very far from posses- 
sing these recommendations, and as a class, the clergy con- 
nected with the nominal Protestant government are not called 
to so much self-denial, are more secular, and preach less of the 
pure doctrine of the gospel than the Catholic clergy of Ger- 
many. As to morals and manners, the standard is so different 
in all Europe from that in America, that it is difficult to judge. 
It is certain that those of every denomination drink freely, 
play cards publicly, and frequent the theatres openly; by which 
we do not mean to say that all do, or the greater portion, or 
that those who do these things are equally reverenced with 
those who do not ; but that many do, and retain their position 



138 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

as teachers of religion and morality. It is also evident that 
American clergymen do not think conformity in some of these 
things a "sin unto death," as, either to gratify a natural and 
excusable curiosity, or to learn as much as possible of the dark 
side of the world, in order to be better able to expose it, and 
make truth and goodness desirable by contrast, many seek out 
what they are in the habit of denominating " sinks of iniquity," 
and " roads to ruin," and contemplate for a time these horrible 
things. 

When we were in Catholic villages we attended the Catholic 
church, and in every place saw the children assembled for 
Sunday-school teachings, and heard them catechised in exactly 
the same way as Protestant children are catechised, and could 
see very little difference in the general intelligence of the peo- 
ple, whether professing one faith or the other. Indeed, there 
is nothing that should make a difference. All the children 
attend schools where the system is exactly the same, and attend 
church where the difference is more in name than in reality. 
But this is the remarkable feature of the Catholic church, that 
it adapts itself to all governments, and all people — takes into 
consideration all times and seasons and ages — and knows very 
well that dogmas and exactions which would be received sub- 
missively in the Middle Ages, in the days of darkness and 
superstition, would not be tolerated in these, and makes no 
attempts at imposing them upon the people. There are images 
in the churches, and a crucifix in every corner, which are looked 
upon as symbols by some, and as objects of idolatry by others, 
according to their mental capacities. We hear them uniformly 
told that these are not to be worshipped, and though there is 
a great deal of mummery left, which for us has neither sense 
nor reason nor interest, and is inconceivable folly, we learned 



EDUCATION. 139 

to respect the simplicity that could find food and comfort in 
what could not even for a moment engage our attention when 
the novelty was gone. With our minds and feelings they 
would do the same; but we have not only been made differently 
in the first place, but grown up under influences so dissimilar 
that to judge one another is impossible, and may possibly be a 
greater sin than even idolatrous worship. 

At least it would be well if the world in general would re- 
cover from the prejudice against everything Catholic, and the 
belief that everything Protestant or reformed is right; if they 
would cultivate the spirit of Christian charity, and see things 
as they really are. 

In many countries on the continent, the people are less capable 
of thinking and reasoning than the children of England and 
America. They are taught to read and write, but are scarcely 
more educated and not a whit more intelligent for this. It is 
even true that schools for teaching " reading, writing and 
arithmetic" are more numerous in Catholic Italy than in 
Protestant Prussia.* Rome has a population of 158,618 souls, 
and 372 public primary schools with 482 teachers, and 14,099 
children attending them. The population of Berlin is double, 
and has only 264 schools ; and the Papal States, with two and 
a half millions, contain seven universities ; Prussia, with seven- 
teen millions, has also but seven ! 

But this is not saying that the people in one place or the 
other are educated. They are both ignorant and stupid ; but 
it is not the fault of their religion. The government does not 
allow them to think or act, and the children of England or 
America who do not know how to read or write, are more 
intelligent and have more mental activity. We have seen 

* Lalng. 



140 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

learned professors who were as stupid as cartmen, and never 
bad one original thought, and were no better judges of prac- 
tical things in the world than children, and no more useful. 

The Catholic church has ceased to be afraid of the power 
of their people, because they can read and write, and we doubt 
not there will come a time when she will throw away her 
symbols ; because she will adapt herself to the times and the 
people over whom she wishes to rule. Her tactics are already 
very different in England and America from what they are on 
the Continent ; and dungeons and tortures will not be the 
machinery by which she will take root in the new world. It 
would not be strange if she should do it by becoming pure and 
spiritual, and those of other denominations who would retain 
their position, must take care how their luxurious churches 
exclude the pure and spiritual from their teachings. 



CHAPTER IX. 

AGRICULTURE — IRRIGATION SUPERSTITIONS FLAX-RAISING 

Our first excursions in the country were in the spring, when 
the grasses were already green, and soon the summer foliage 
and the abundant harvests made the earth reel with her rich 
burdens. It was then our constant exclamation, " How is it 
possible to make any soil produce so much V In America, in 
the orchards and where fruit trees grow, there is no attempt at 
cultivating the earth for other purposes ; but here, under any 
green tree, there is another harvest — it is as luxuriant beneath 
as above. 

When we came to mingle with the farmers themselves, we 
learned something of their secrets, and are sure it will be no 
betrayal of confidence if we make them known. 

When the rich summer coats were removed and the earth 
was exposed, we saw the little well-springs of fruitfulness bub- 
bling up over all the land, and learned that neither grain, nor 
grass, nor vegetables, grow here more than anywhere else, 
without science, perseverance, and toil. 

" Draining and irrigation " — we have often seen these terms, 
and heard the processes spoken of as the gold and silver in- 
struments of agriculture. All over the fields, running here and 
there, zigzag and crisscross, we see little canals of only two or 
three inches in width, which had evidently some special de- 

141 



142 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

sign — yes, they were for the purpose of irrigation, and it has 
accomplished so much for the dry and waste places of these 
now fruitful fields l&at we must attempt to describe it. 

In Germany, the term meadows is applied to what we call 
pasture-land, which lies away from the natural watering sources, 
and is so dry as to be quite useless, unless moistened by artifi- 
cial means. The labor is immense of preparing the ground for 
the canals, as there must be an inclined plane, and when nature 
has not made it, the whole turf must be carefully removed, and 
the good soil also taken away, that the leveling may be per- 
formed upon the subsoil which is beneath and not good for any 
productive purpose. When the whole has been made level, or 
reduced to the necessary inclination, the good soil and turf are 
replaced and the canals formed. 

Sometimes a well is first dug, in order to procure water, and 
from this a channel runs on the upper side of the inclined plane, 
which is to hold the water that is to flow over the land. This 
is the supplying canal ; on the lower side is the receiving canal, 
and between are the little cross channels, through which the water 
must flow. The breadth between the largest channels must not 
be more than six or eight rods, and between the smaller furrows 
only a rod. The elevation is scarcely perceptible, being but a 
few inches. A very nice process it is to form the inclination 
exact and arrange the furrows so as to water all parts equally. 
Parallel with the supplying and receiving canals, and at right 
angles with the transverse furrows, must also be longitudinal 
ones, and when the water is permitted to flow, it must be in 
measured quantities and at stated seasons. 

It is said that snow water dissolves the earth and carries off 
the rich particles of soil, so this is never used in irrigation. 
After the crops are gathered, and the land clear, the water 



IRRIGATION. 143 

overflows two or three times a week during the autumn till 
frost comes. In spring it is done in the night, two or three 
times a week, when it is dry and so warm as not to freeze, as 
this would injure the grass. Again, in June, just before the 
haying time, as thus the stems are rendered softer, and the 
mowing easier. Then for the fourth and last time, fifteen days 
after the mowing is finished, when the stubble is dry and de- 
cayed, so that it will not take the nourishment which is 
destined for the new shoots, the whole is overflowed quite often, 
till fifteen days before the grain harvest commences. 

Sometimes a sort of rolling prairie is made of the land, by 
dividing it into as many rods in width as there are rods in length, 
and a slight elevation of a few inches between each division, 
and the furrows correspond to the ridges. The supplying canal 
is on the upper side of the meadow or pasture, and transverse 
furrows carry the water to the receiving canal, the whole form- 
ing a curious network ; and when, as we have often seen, these 
hundreds of little rills are flowing and dimpling and sparkling in 
the morning or evening sun, it is also a beautiful sight upon the 
wide extent of the otherwise dreary plain. Many thousands of 
acres have thus been rendered fruitful that were formerly barren. 

In one town we were struck every moment in our walks with 
the beauty and fertility of the parterres, and were told that from 
six thousand five hundred acres, which formerly yielded only a 
value of five hundred dollars, there was now an income of three 
thousand, and the whole expense of preparing the ground and 
introducing the water was covered the first year by the in- 
creased fruitfulness ; and in the same county, thirty or forty 
villages obtained the same result. 

The furrows crossing the land must^be changed every three 
or four years, and should be narrow and deep, as they thus 



144 PEASANT LIFE m GERMANY. 

occupy less surface, and less mud accumulates in them. The 
water is thought, too, to act more efficiently on the soil than 
when they are shallow, and continually enriches it by bringing 
new and valuable particles, which it leaves in deposit. 

This system of irrigation was invented by Mr. Drusler, the 
mayor of Siegen, a town in Ehenish Prussia, in the year 1*150, 
and has extended over nearly all Germany. Wherever we 
went in the autumn, we saw the little rills, and saw them upon 
little strips of land here and there, which otherwise would be 
parched and dry nearly the whole year, and not worth a penny. 
As we said in the beginning, we have never seen anything to equal 
the persevering industry and toil of the German husbandry, and 
the economy with which everything that can be made useful is 
gathered and stored. In the forests may be seen the children 
gathering in baskets all the cones which fall from the fir trees for 
kindlings, during the winter, and gleaners may be seen in all the 
harvest fields, and here, as in the land of Judea in the days of old, 
these are always women ; with the little sickle they go over all 
the hills and valleys, and cut every stray spear of grass, every 
tuft by the wayside, and gather the scattered remnants of 
every sheaf, pick up every seed and leave not even a weed to 
flourish in its rankness. Sometimes they are seen returning 
home in troops, with their treasures in baskets or tied in bun- 
dles, and in whatever way, always on their heads. The cow 
and pig of many a poor widow subsist entirely upon these 
gleanings. 

In one village in the Westerwald, or western forest, we used 
to hear every day, at exactly twelve o'clock, a horn blown, all 
up and down the street. We thought at first it must be the 
postman, as this is the way he often announces himself ; but hav- 
iag looked several times and seen no arrival at the noise of the 



EMPLOYMENTS. 145 

trumpet, we inquired, and were told it was to call forth the cows 
of the poor, who during the summer were permitted to crop the 
grass by the wayside for a few hours each day ; and sure 
enough, the next time we looked abroad, at the clear shrill mu- 
sic of the winding horn, there was a troop of these quiet ani- 
mals wending their way to some distant grass-plat, where they 
had learned there was a fresh sweet morsel to be found. One 
would not suppose it could be necessary to blow a horn every 
day of the month, and every year of the century; but this is 
only a specimen of the system with which everything is done in 
this old land. Like dock-work is a proverb in the new world, 
but it is only here that we see it illustrated. 

In the city where we once lived, there came in every week, 
on Friday morning, a little fat, jolly looking man, who without 
ceremony ' took the glass from the clocks in each room, and 
wound them up, replaced them, and trotted out again, till at 
length we asked upon what authority he did this. "Oh, this 
was his regular business." He lived two miles out of town, 
but the city was divided into districts, and in a certain portion 
he wound all the clocks, having a certain day and hour for 
each. 

In the same city and street, we noticed every time we went 
out and in, a man sitting upon a stone, and around him stand- 
ing two or three others, who were often engaged in coming and 
going with packages. Till at length we asked again, " What is 
the man's business, and how long has he sat here ?" " He is a 
packer, and has sat there some forty years." 

" Forty years !" 

" Why yes ; is that anything so wonderful ?" To be sure, it 
was nothing so very wonderful after all, as this was his regular 
business — and he was now an old man — that he should have 

7 



146 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

attended to it forty years, and a stone was as good a place 
for the firm to establish themselves by, as a counter or a desk. 
But we had never before heard of a packer, which was perhaps 
the greatest part of our surprise. We found it afterwards a 
common profession in southern and interior Germany, and our 
good friend was one of the most respectable of his class, a 
thoroughly substantial, respectable looking man, who had fol- 
lowed an humble calling, patiently, honestly and industriously, 
from youth to old age, and from a beginning with nothing, to a 
comfortable in dependence. He packed and unpacked the goods 
of merchants, and the furniture of families when they moved. 
If a party were going a journey, they sent for him to pack 
their trunks, and in all these cases he took the whole care 
upon himself, as independently as a man would build a house 
or a tailor make a coat, receiving only general directions. His 
fame had extended also quite across the borders. When the 
Emperor of Russia was married to a princess of Darmstadt, 
he was sent for to pack the trousseau, and marvelous tales he 
had to tell when he returned, of the velvet and the ermine. 

All these humble callings, as well as those of carpenters, car- 
riage makers, and tailors, are under the protection and super- 
vision of government, and cannot be laid aside and resumed 
without permission ; and we presume the man who blows the 
horn for the cows has also a regular commission, and the cows 
could be called by no other person, or in any other way, without 
a council of state to decide upon the matter, which does not 
make it the less a deed of kindness to the poor, and one for 
which they must be very grateful, as it saves them much labor, 
and enables them to save a large portion of their gleanings for 
the long, cold winter days. Oh, how they must be suffering, 
notwithstanding, in some of those dismal huts, with the wind 



WAIXED TOWNS. 147 

whistling through the crevices, and the snow piled against their 
windows. 

But it is only in the interior, within the circle of the old 
feudal dominions, that we see the villages constructed in this 
way. In the north, and far away to the south, the farming 
districts have more the appearance of farming regions in 
America. The houses are scattered about on the hillsides and 
in the valleys, with plenty of room within and without for men 
and animals, though the cows, the horses and pigs, are here 
under the same roof with the family, separated perhaps only by 
a narrow hall, on the one side opening into the stable, and on 
the other into the kitchen and dining-room. We have our- 
selves slept for a week directly over the animals, and heard 
their champing and tramping at all hours, night and day, 
though our room was as clean as wax itself, the walls neatly 
papered, and the floor as white as scouring could make it. But 
our window also overlooked the stable-yard, and the effluvia 
from beneath and round about, would have seemed pestilential if 
we had not heard that it was everywhere considered healthful ! 

But these compact country villages were built when people 
thought more of defence against foreign foes, than protection 
agaiust fever and malaria at home, and at a time when it could 
not be imagined the people would ever become as the sand on 
the sea shore for multitude. 

" A walled town with massive arched gateways " — how often 
we have read this, and thought how grand and imperial must be 
these little towns. What a veneration we have had for " time- 
stained walls," when reading the descriptions of those who rode 
hastily by at a distance, and could bestow upon them only a 
passing glance, or when gazing at them through the enchant- 
ments which the artist's pencil is sure to throw around them. 



148 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

Henceforth, away with such hallucinations ; we have en- 
tered the massive gateways, and dwelt within the "time- 
stained walls," and there are the same beauty and fascina- 
tion about them that one may find in the most dismal cells 
and garrets of the Five Points, or the dark alleys which 
lead to the dens of poverty anywhere among the oldest and 
most dilapidated streets of New York. They, too, are found 
by first passing through or by walls of brick and mortar, 
which constitute the mansions of the rich, which are infinitely 
more grand and imposing than those old gateways are or ever 
were. 

It is true, that in order to enter many a town of three or 
five thousand inhabitants, one must pass under an arch of stone, 
stuccoed and carved in all manner of hideous figures, as they 
now look to us, though very likely they have been in their day 
very wonderful works of art. The gate is still guarded by 
men in armor, who pass to and fro, with shouldered • guns, 
looking like automaton images, dressed in the gear of by-gone 
ages. But the purpose for which they stand there now seems 
to us anything but chivalrous and honorable, for it is this : 
to search the baskets of the poor women who come to market, 
and all people, old and young, who come from their farms and 
their trades, to be sure that nothing is admitted free that 
should pay a town duty i We have not heard the names of the 
contraband articles, but are sure a poor old frau, bareheaded 
and barelegged, with only a peck basket full of stuff, which she 
wishes to sell in order to buy a tin dipper, a piece of calico, or 
a pound of coffee, can have nothing which should be contraband, 
and subject her to the expense of a penny to support this 
miserable town, though one may well believe they need all they 
can get 



SUPERSTITIONS. 149 

A curious spectacle is afforded on market-day mornings. In 
the open platz assemble the men and women from far and near, 
each in the costume of the district, some with cabbages and 
some with broom corn, some with butter and some with cheese, 
until all the articles of husbandry and many of domestic manu- 
facture, such as baskets, mats, pottery and cloth are arranged 
in two long rows upon each side of the square. By their 
wares some are kneeling and some are sitting, some are stand- 
ing, and some are walking, and all jabbering such jibberish as 
only they can understand. It is a superstition among these old 
Frauen, that they shall have no luck unless they sell first to a 
young, blooming virgin, and we have often seen them wait 
long and refuse good bargains in order to invest their Kraut 
and Kringel with this charm. If the luck comes not then, we 
presume they have a good way of accounting for it, at any 
rate, no ill fortune seems to destroy their faith in its effi- 
cacy. . 

In Brunswick we saw a curious instance of superstition in 
men. When called to testify in a court of justice, they think 
themselves bound to tell the truth only when occupying a certain 
position, which is with the left hand held straight down by the 
side, and the right in front of the breast, with the two fore- 
fingers pointing outward. When standing in this way, no temp- 
tation will lead them to swerve from the truth, but an officer is 
employed to watch them during the whole time, or the fingers 
are sure to steal around behind and commence twirling a 
thread or button, with which process they feel at liberty to 
vary as widely as they please from correct statements. These 
are curious relics of the days of barbarism, and remind us every 
day of similar fantasies among the American Indians, and not 
among them only. One may hear things quite as strange in 



15C PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

familiar intercourse with the fishermen of Marblehead, and 
their descendants in many parts of New England have not lost 
their faith in signs and wonders. 

The remnants of feudal laws and customs jarring against 
modern, and even republican innovations, strike one at every 
step. In two or three villages, in different places, we have seen 
instances of American or English families, coming to reside for 
a few weeks or months, and bringing servants and children. 
With these accompaniments, it had not occurred to them that 
a copy of their marriage certificates would be necessary to give 
legitimacy and respectability to any poor little one who might 
have the misfortune to be born among a people so scrupulous. 
But no prayers or entreaties could induce the registrar of these 
important items, to record the birth of a little stranger unless 
the mother could prove by documentary evidence his right and 
title to this honor. It had been the law from the commence- 
ment of formal legislation, that the birth of a child should be 
registered in a book kept for this purpose, and also that the 
proofs of a formal or regular marriage should be adduced by 
those who would thus give their children the rights and privi- 
leges of citizenship and inheritance of property. The inhabi- 
tants of the country must, of course, conform to these requisi- 
tions, which are quite right and proper. But neither their laws 
nor inheritances would be much affected by irregularities in 
American families ; and how easy for those from a country 
thousands of miles away to forge a certificate or any other 
document necessary to their purposes. But the letter of the 
law must be obeyed. 

When we spoke of it to a German lady, she lamented, as if 
it were a real calamity, that the parents had been so negligent, 
and thus entailed upon their child the disgrace of illegitimacy 



FAIRS AND MARKETS. 151 

through life. Wkat a stigma for the poor child to bear ! We 
laughed merrily at such a ridiculous view of the matter ; but to 
her the child was really disgraced; and if one whose birth was 
dishonorable, could have procured the registering of his name, 
she would have had no lamentations for the real immorality. 
So great an influence mere forms come to exert upon the minds 
of people. 

The fairs and markets are the peculiar institutions of Ger- 
many, and are held for the purpose of selling and supplying the 
people with anything that is needed in social and family use, as 
shops do in other countries. In the Duchy of Nassau, there are 
261 in the course of a year, some of them being only cattle 
and swine markets, and some for the sale of all manner of 
goods. There are usually four, to correspond with the four 
seasons, which are more general and important than the others, 
and attended by people from all the surrounding country. The 
almanac contains every year a list of the markets which will 
be held, and the days of opening and closing. The Grand 
Duchy of Hesse Darmstadt has 250, and the Jews are so far 
regarded in all, that if the fair happens upon their Sunday, or 
feast day, there is a change made. Besides these, in each 
duchy or principality there are the great fairs, held twice a 
year, at Leipsic, Brunswick, and Frankfort, Leipsic being the 
largest, to which come the people from all parts of Germany, 
and sometimes from Holland, Belgium, France, and Switzer- 
land. Here one may see the national and sectional character- 
istics of the people, and have the manufactures and industrial 
products of every nook and corner of the land. Little booths 
are erected in all the squares and along the main street, and 
tables spread, behind which stand the owners of the wares in 
their several distinctive costumes, offering you the "cheapest, 



152 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

the best, and most beautiful," in dialects not less distinct and 
peculiar. 

But it is not the results of great manufactures, of steam 
power, and water privilege, that are here collected, as would 
be the case in England and America ; but the results of house- 
hold industry. In all the rural districts of Germany, the 
people who are in summer toiling in the fields, ploughing, 
hoeing, reaping, mowing, are in winter engaged in various 
kinds of handicrafts, their own hands being the power looms, 
and levers, and turning lathes. There is often very little skill 
exhibited in these productions ; but the industry is marvelous, 
and by it they obtain the little money they have for the few 
luxuries they indulge in, and to pay their taxes, which are 
many and great. 

We read of certain cities which furnish the world with 
specified articles of luxury, but often not a person in the city 
makes these things. Nuremberg is the great toy market, 
and ask where you will, " Whence come these things ?" you 
are told Nuremberg ; but the toys are made by the peasants 
in the villages of the Thuringian forest. Here are whole 
armies marshaled on a plain, the men being scarcely an inch in 
height, and their accoutrements proportionally diminutive. 
Railroads, steamboats, castles, cottages, miniature villages, 
everything they have seen they imitate, for the amusement 
of the little folks, and the sugar work, glass, earthen, and 
wooden articles are often carved with a nicety of line, and 
curve, and finish, quite inconceivable wilji the rough hands and 
rude tools that execute. 

There are fine laces from Silesia, and these, too, are wrought 
in such miserable, poverty-stricken homes, as one would not 
believe could send* forth anything beautiful. But during all 



FLAX-KAISING. 153 

leisure hours men, women and children are engaged with the 
bobbins that weave the delicate meshes we might suppose must 
owe their gossamer texture to fairy fingers. And when it is 
bleached and pressed, and ready for market, it is put in large 
packs, the year's labor of a whole village being scarcely enough 
for one, perhaps, and the women set forth with them slung 
across their backs, and bending to the earth with their burdens. 
From city to city they wend their way, often "barefoot and 
bareheaded, allowing themselves scarcely food to support life 
by the way ; attending at fairs and sometimes kneeling to 
princes, saying, " Buy, buy, for we are starving," till they have 
disposed of the precious store, and then return to distribute 
the money among the naked and starving, who are waiting 
anxiously for the little pittance on which life for another year 
depends. The laces of Silesia are scarcely inferior to those of 
Brussels ; and coarser kinds are brought from Saxony, while 
France and Holland contribute the finest and most costly. Of 
one pound of Flanders linen thread is made from two to three 
thousand dollars' worth of lace ! 

It is the same with a great portion of linen cloth. It is 
spun and woven in families, though there are, of course, in 
Germany now large manufacturies for all kinds of cloths. 
Frederic the Great used to call his country a nation of spin- 
ners, for the wheels and spindles were to be heard in every cot 
upon the mountain, and in every hut in the valley, and bitterly 
do the peasants curse the machiuery that threatens to deprive 
them of this source of domestic industry and profit. 

The raising of flax has profited by the enlightenments of 
science perhaps to a greater degree than any other branch of 
agriculture; and in Flanders the new interest in husbandry be- 
gan with the effort to increase the profits of the linen industry 



154 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

In Prussia, which constitutes a third of Germany, there were, a 
few years since, 246,294 looms, which were used only from six 
to eight weeks in the year, when the people could not work 
out doors, and 35, 8 IT which were used all the time ; and of 
those who work all the year, 24,290, or two thirds of the 
whole, live in the country. The rest are to be found in small 
cities, working without capital and realizing very small profits. 

For damasks and all fine table linens Saxony is most famous, 
where a hundred thousand people are engaged in making 
linen, and five or six million of dollars worth produced every 
year in this quiet way. But so entirely a separate business is 
the bleaching, that a great portion of that which is spun in one 
place is bleached in another, and thousands of yards spun in 
Saxony and Silesia are sent to Bohemia to be woven, and then 
returned to Silesia to be bleached. 

We have seen linen as fine spun and woven in the cottage- 
homes of New England, though the wheels are now nearly all 
silenced by the din and buzz of manufactories. But we remem- 
ber to have heard the farmers complain always, that flax ex- 
hausted the soil, and in two or three years run out itself which 
proves they never learned the art of cultivating it. If it was 
permitted to run out in Germany, or to exhaust the soil, what 
would become of the people ? 

Formerly, some ground was permitted to lie fallow every 
three years, and this portion the third year was devoted to 
flax, but even this necessity has been overcome, and by a right 
preparation of the soil and of the seed, it may be raised year 
after year on the same fields without deteriorating. The soil 
must be very deeply tilled, and richly manured, and very line 
at the surface, every weed must be thoroughly removed, and a 
cold moist climate is better than one which is dry and warm. 



FLAX-RAISING. 155 

But it is in soaking the seed and in ripening and sowing it, that 
much of the culture depends, and according as this is done 
rightly, are saved or lost millions of dollars. It must be soaked 
eight or ten days in standing water, at first changing it every 
day, and then every two or three days, and when it has been 
dried thoroughly, sown in the evening and allowed to remain 
exposed all night to the freshness and moisture of the air, and 
covered in the morning. 

The flax in order to be of the right consistency must be cut 
before the seed is ripe, therefore good flax and good seed cannot 
be raised together. Formerly it was a great business in Russia 
to raise flax only for seed, and all other countries obtained their 
seed from the Russians, not understanding why it was better, 
and could alone produce good flax. But now it is known that 
they have only to leave a small portion to thoroughly ripen, and 
their own seed is as good as any, and not so expensive, though 
the flax that produces it is thrown away. 

We have seen men weaving, and women breaking flax, as it is 
called in New England. The machinery is very nearly the 
same in all places, but the process varies a little in the southern 
districts. A circular hole, some three or four feet deep, is dug in 
the earth, with an opening of six feet perhaps across the top, in 
which a fire is made. The surface is covered with branches of 
trees, and upon these the flax is lain to be dried by the heat of 
the embers below ; around this fiery furnace the women stand 
with the brakes (we believe this is the English technical 
term) and pound the rough, coarse looking stuff, till it is soft, 
when others take it and draw it through the hatchel, switching 
and flourishing it about, as we have seen done in individual 
instances before, but where there are a dozen, and the air is 
filled with the dust mingling with the smoke, till the figures an J 



156 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

their implements are only vaguely to be distinguished, one ia 
reminded of the witches around the boiling cauldron, singing : 

" When shall we three meet again, 
In thunder, lightning, or in rain." 

Whether any of our readers will feel a hundredth part of the 
interest we do, in learning how and why things are done, wc 
cannot tell, but in this we find our principal pleasure in coming 
among the people, and in this way only we can understand them 
Their labors are their life, and to describe these will best illus- 
trate their characters. Here we see literally demonstrated, that 
man is condemned to " earn his bread by the sweat of his brow f 
but where he owns the soil he tills, there is a light-heartedness 
and contentment in the labor which he does not evince when he 
receives even more for what he does for another. There is sad 
poverty, and in time of calamity, even starvation, in many dis- 
tricts of Germany, but there is still the pleasant feeling that he 
is lord of the land, which enables him to endure many a burden 
which would otherwise be insupportable. 



CHAPTER X. 

FAIRS HOUSEKEEPING DOME STIC S— ART IN EUROPE AND AMERICA, 

It seemed to us impossible for people to transport their 
wares, two or three times a year, so great a distance, build 
their tents, and board and lodge in a strange city, and still 
make it profitable ; but as political economists say, men do 
not continue for a length of time to do what is not profitable, 
and as it has been a custom for centuries among the Germans 
to hold these fairs, we must conclude it pays in some way, 
though they are beginning to-be of less consequence than they 
were. In the small villages and country places, there are yet 
few shops, though one would think they might be established 
here and there, and resorted to with less expense, and quite 
as much convenience, as attending these fairs and markets 
continually. But the housekeeping stores and wardrobes of 
the country people are still very simple, and home manufacture 
supplies the greatest portion of their wants. The children 
look forward to a fair as the children of New England were 
wont to look forward to a training, and the varieties of cakes> 
toys, pictures, and amusements which characterize these 
gatherings, show that children are of vast importance in the 
provisions which are made. Signor Blitz is without a rival in 
America, but he has many compters in Germany, and feats of 
magic and legerdemain are among the conspicuous attractions 

1ST 



158 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

of these holidays. The circus establishes its tent, and comes 
each time with " a troupe unrivaled and before unequaled in 
agility and marvelous exhibitions," and is thronged day and 
night. Under another tent, miniature ponies and horsemen are 
continually traversing the distance of half a mile in a circle, 
and troops of children are waiting for a ride which they get 
for a few cents each. Panoramas, dioramas, cosmoramas, and 
all the family of ramas, with pictures of every name and degree 
of excellence, are collected in their several groups for the 
several tastes of these thousands of pleasure-seekers. The same 
position is occupied by the same shop or exhibition, year after 
year, and century after century, and in many respects a hun- 
dred years produce scarcely any change in the whole. Some 
new things are introduced, and others perfected, but the grand 
fair remains the same. Everything that is bought and sold in 
the whole country finds a place here, but in many instances 
only a few are shown as samples, and orders taken to be after- 
wards supplied. 

In the business streets, new signs in large letters are hung 
out over almost every door, and even families give up their 
parlors and best sleeping-rooms to merchants and manufac- 
turers, who fill them with the productions of their several 
establishments. It happened to us to resign our apartments 
to a cloth merchant, aus Rheydt, out of Eheydt, a town in 
Rhenish Prussia, near Dusseldorf. Rolls of woolen, satin, and 
velvet, took possession of our chairs and tables, and upon the 
desk were great books of samples, from which those wishing to 
buy had only to select, and then decide how much of each should 
be sent at another time to their shops. It is becoming the 
custom, also, to employ runners, as in America, to carry and 
exhibit these books of specimens, and take orders. 



FAIRS. 159 

The law fixes the hour of sale, and it is ushered in by 
musicians who play and sing through all the streets, and 
continue to do so during the three weeks the fair is in session, 
receiving a few coppers from the windows of the inhabitants, 
like the strolling proprietors of hand-organs in New York. 
But the law can be evaded with bolted doors, and we saw 
several thousand dollars worth disposed of before a single 
purchase was allowed to be made. 

From the same little province come many valuable articles. 
Ellenfeld manufactures iron, and brass, and cutlery in great 
quantities, and twenty-five different kinds of ribbons, with 
silk and cotton goods of beautiful texture, and especially of 
beautiful colors. It is here the famous Turkish red is produced 
in such perfection, that cloths and yarns are sent from Great 
Britain and France to be dyed, and then reexported cheaper 
than could be done where they are made. 

Westphalia is one of the provinces conquered, and taken 
possession of by the French, and was for a little time subject 
to Jerome Bonaparte. Here the people were never universally 
serfs, but owned the land, and are in modern days remarkably 
thriving and enterprising. Nearly every village has its manu- 
factory, and its buttons, needles, pins, and every species of 
cutlery, are as famous as those of Birmingham. 

Nothing looks quite so beautiful to us as this Bohemian 
glass, which is known the world over, but reaches America 
only as a great curiosity and luxury. The Bohemiau peasant, 
who has come with it, is dressed in Prussia blue, with silver 
buttons and sugar-loaf crowned hat, and appears more like 
a Frenchman than German. The glass is most tastefully ar- 
ranged upon shelves and tables, and includes articles of every 
form and fashion, as well as every color of the rainbow. The 



160 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANYc 

beauty is in the fine and beautiful finish. Prague and Vienna 
are the great depots for the sale of it, but it is made in the 
villages of the Bohemian forest, and employs thousands of 
families who work in the same quiet way, as everything else 
is done in Germany, devoting to this the leisure hours that 
cannot be employed in a more profitable way. 

The same is true of a hundred other different articles of 
wood, leather, straw, etc., which it would fill a volume to 
enumerate, and many of which we shall have occasion to de- 
scribe, as we find the people at their work. 

How many a ballad we have seen illustrated as these groups, 
from a hundred different places, throng the city with their 
various commodities, often singing not the words, but some- 
thing which corresponds to the ditty of the blithe little maiden, 
with her light wares all laden, who came crying : 

" Buy a broom ! 
Buy a broom ! 
Oh, buy of the wandering Bavarian a broom !" 

From the interior and western parts of Germany, the women 
are seen carrying everything on their heads, which they often do 
without holding them also with the hands. Large tubs and 
baskets, of one or two bushels in size and capacity, are made to 
balance upon a little round cushion, which is constructed of 
pieces of colored cloth, tastefully arranged, but which must be 
very warm and uncomfortable. They say it is much easier car- 
rying burdens in this way than with the weight coming upon 
the arms and shoulders. But from the north and west we see 
them with a kind of yoke fitted across the shoulders behind, 
and the weights attached to pieces which fall as low as the 
hands, and need only to be balanced on each side Often, too, 



HOUSEKEEPING. 161 

great packs and stacks are borne upon the back, under which 
they bend till they become unable to stand upright ; but it is 
only women who are thus converted into beasts of burden. 
Men use wheelbarrows and donkey-carts, and nowhere perform 
the amount of labor, or that which is so heavy and exhausting, 
as the women, and nowhere so early grow old and haggard. 
At the north they are better-looking in the first place, and re- 
tain their youth and beauty much longer, a difference to be seen 
in all countries, between North and South. 

In some provinces the shawl is worn as tenaciously as among 
Indian women, though never so gracefully as by the children 
of nature ; and in Hamburg they wear also lace caps and long 
kid gloves. The shawl is of the gayest pattern, and arranged 
so as to conceal a little basket, or box shaped like a coffin, and 
which is carried on all occasions, in the street, if her errand 
takes her only a few rods from her house, because it is her 
badge of office, and proof that she has a place in a family, which 
secures her from insult. They are a remarkably respectable 
looking class, and maintain their several positions with great 
pride and dignity. The box and shawl are given to each on 
her entrance into service, and her name registered on the 
" servant's book," which is kept by the police, who do not give 
her permission to enter a new place without a certificate from her 
employer, that she is worthy. This is also the custom in every 
town, large and small, and may have the effect to make them 
careful what they do ; but it is also attended by the evil, that 
ladies may, from caprice, dismiss a servant, and refuse her a 
certificate, without which she may wander idly about for 
months, and become vicious from want of employment. In 
Bremen servants cannot engage for less time than six months, 
and cannot then be dismissed without a warning three months 



162 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

before, unless for very serious ill-conduct. Here they are permit- 
ted also to have a patch of land to cultivate, and in their leisure 
hours raise a little crop of potatoes or flax, which they can 
dispose of to their own advantage, and do not anywhere at the 
north have so slavish an appearance as at the south, where it 
is the universal complaint that they are never to be trusted? 
and where they are indeed treated like a nation of thieves. 
Everything is locked and double locked, as thoroughly as 
if they expected to be' constantly besieged by robbers. A 
Germau housekeeper is a slave to her keys. She gives out 
every article from the store-closet herself, and exactly the 
quantity necessary for every compound ; else, she says, it will 
be carried off to some lover or friend. What is allowed each 
one to eat, is placed upon her plate before the family leave the 
table — just so much meat, bread, and vegetables as is judged 
sufficient — so many lumps of sugar given into her hand, and 
all the rest locked where she cannot come. The quantity 
seemed usually very generous, and we may not be capable of 
judging of a system which we have not tried, nor know how 
debased a whole class may be with whom we have not lived ; 
but we often wonder what would become of the colored slaves 
of America if they were subject to such a bondage as this, 
where eating and drinking is the great diversion. 

The construction of the houses makes many keys necessary, 
without reference to the servants. As to economize room is the 
important consideration, there is a box, or drawer, in every 
nook and corner, and where there is a family on every floor? 
and the common staircase open to all who choose to go up and 
down, everything must of course be locked. Each housewife 
carries a little oblong basket, eight or ten iuches long and 
three or four wide, with a handle, and in this are deposited her 



HOUSEKEEPING. 103 

keys. We have seen between forty and fifty in one basket, 
and almost every one used daily, and some many times a day. 
To every room, cupboard, drawer and box, the lady must go 
herself, for everything that is wanted in all the multiplicity of 
household affairs. Whether the servants are indeed so faithless, 
we have no means of knowing ; but we have seen many thus 
distrusted, whom we could willingly have taken into service, and 
by kindness and confidence so won, that we should have no fears 
for the safety of gold and silver, and jewels uncounted and untold. 
When food was dealt to them as if they were dogs, we have 
seen come over their honest faces the blush of shame and humi- 
liation, that made us feel for them the same pity and sympathy 
as if they had been arraigned for crime, when we knew they 
were innocent. The best heart may easily become corrupted 
by such treatment, and where honesty and fidelity receive no 
reward, or commendation, they will soon cease to be valued. 

It is often the case that girls come from the country to the 
city to live for a little time in a family, in order to learn a 
better kind of housekeeping. They, perhaps, belong to the 
aristocracy of their little village, and have acquired something 
of a feeling of independence. They have not been nccustomed 
to work very hard, as the routine of domestic labor m a farm- 
house even, is not very complicated or elaborate, and they 
enter upon their new life eutirely ignorant of the duties they 
must perform. One we saw transferred from her free country 
home to the dismal atmosphere of a city kitchen. Bright and 
blooming she was as a May morning, and as pure as the water 
of the village fouutain, or the lily that bloomed in the valley 
by her side. She was the servant of all work, as the family 
could afford but one, and was expected to rise with the sun and 
before breakfast to put the parlor and dining-room in ord^r 



164 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

which no American woman would think of having done by a 
servant who was cook and scrub besides. All the floors are 
unpainted oak, and are wiped with a mop wet in cold water 
every morning to take off the dust. The breakfast takes but 
little time, as it is only bread and coffee, and the bread is 
purchased the night before. After breakfast, the marketing 
must be attended to, and sometimes the lady of the house does 
it herself, and sometimes the servant, and often both go to- 
gether. The sleeping-rooms are to be tidied. Dinner for four 
people, with English or American cookery, would employ an 
hour ; but with German it requires four or five. It is putter, 
putter, putter, the whole forenoon, keeping the servant con 
stantly busy, and the lady in constant supervision. To look at 
the stove and count the kettles in actual service, we would be 
led to expect some four to six courses, with a great display of 
luxuries. But when it appears, there is a soup, one dish of 
meat and one of vegetables, and all excellent. But to make them 
ready, there has been such a fussing and fretting and stewing 
as ought to be expended on a hundred dinners ; and every day 
for three months, we hear the complaint that " the servant 
never can learn to cook — it is strange how stupid she is." But 
instead of leaving her to try experiments and make a few mis- 
takes, relying upon her own judgment till she can think, com- 
pare, and compound successfully, the lady is continually trot- 
ting into the kitchen, and by continual fault-finding and severity 
completely paralyzes mind and body, so that she is stupefied by 
fear. In six months, four have been successively installed in 
the same place, and all equally stupid, without her being able 
to see that the fault may be entirely with herself. We noticed 
this without considering it a characteristic of German house- 
keepers ; but afterwards read in " Howitt's Rural Life," that 



HOUSEKEEPING. 165 

English ladies always found the same trouble. The servants 
have been accustomed to be followed about and directed in 
every little thing till they have no idea of doing anything with- 
out being told, and retain always a servile air and manner, and 
this we heard from many American ladies, also, who had lived 
long in the land. 

When the dinner is cooked, it is brought in by the servant, 
and she comes to change the plates and take away the remains, 
then brings the coffee which she has made in the meantime. 
After dinner, the dishes are to be washed, and the kitchen 
made tidy; but this is seldom done, because there is a continual 
cleaning of something, which keeps everything in a muss, 
(when we describe kitchens we must use technical terms). The 
&tove is so large that it occupies about one-third of the room — 
on three sides are shelves, or dressers without doors, upon which 
are arrayed the cooking apparatus and the ordinary table furni- 
ture. Everything copper and brass is rubbed daily, and the 
number of these articles is innumerable. They are as bright 
as rubbing can make them, and the perfection of neatness per- 
vades all appertaining to the culinary department, yet there is 
still lacking a system that simplifies complicated arrangements, 
and relieves the severity of labor. 

It seems to be feared that the servant will not earn her 
wages, and work which is utterly needless is done and re- 
peated for the sake of keeping her busy. If there is nothing 
else, she is set to washing windows, late in the afternoon of hot 
summer days, or to scrubbing floors on her hands and knees, 
where we have often seen her till ten at night, and could think 
of nothing but a galley slave, chained to his task ; as often as 
once in two weeks these horrible oaken floors must be scrubbed, 
and three or four hours must be spent upon one ordinary sized 



166 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

room. There are two pails of water, a stiff brush with which 
the scrubbing is done with soap and sand, and a cloth to rinse 
and wipe in the cleaner water. In our pity for the poor crea- 
ture who was doomed to such drudgery, we exclaimed, " why 
do you people in Germany persist in this barbarous custom 
of scrubbing floors ?" 

" Because we cannot afford to have them painted." 

"What a ridiculous 'reason, when you conform to much more 
expensive customs in dress and education." 

" But these are necessary, while it is not absolutely necessary 
to have carpeted or painted floors." 

" I should think it much less necessary to have silk dresses, 
and would rather do without a little French or Latin myself, 
than enjoy such luxuries while these poor girls must perform 
such slavery as this." 

But she could not understand that a peasant girl could be 
any better employed than in scrubbing and cleaning, though 
afterwards she very adroitly planned that it should be done 
when it was most unlikely we should see it. 

It is merely that they have been accustomed to live in this 
way, and go so little about the world, that they do not learn a 
way which is better and not less cheap. We have heard so 
much about the industry and thorough housekeeping of German 
ladies, that we notice much more scrutinizingly than we other- 
wise should ; and they have heard so much about American 
ladies being idle and shiftless, that we cannot help making com- 
parisons. 

That German ladies spend more time in the kitchen than 
American and English ladies of the same rank, is true, but that 
they are better housekeepers, or do any more work, is not true. 
A young German girl who had been several years in America, 



HOUSEKEEPING. 167 

remarked that German ladies, at first, could not endure 
America, they had to work so much more, but when they 
found they were where labor was not degrading, and learned 
how to manage, they liked it better. 

Men writers have been in G-erman families, and heard the 
ladies talk of going down to see to the dinner, and perhaps to 
make the pudding, and judging after the fashion of men, that 
getting good dinners is all of housekeeping, have concluded 
German ladies must be the perfection of housekeepers. But 
this same German lady will be waited upon by her one servant 
of all work, as no American lady would think of being, will 
hire all her plain sewing done, and stares in astonishment to 
see a lady make and repair her own dresses. The American 
lady teaches her cook to get the dinners alone, if she is so well 
off as to have a cook, and has all her work and business so 
arranged that she can have it better done by a good superin- 
tendence than by continually dabbling her own hands in stews 
and suds. 

The stacks of linen are the boast of Germans and the won- 
der of Americans, but they are beginning to confess that this 
is quite unnecessary, and has been kept up by a very ridiculous 
pride. It is becoming the fashion to wash at least once a 
month, but more especially at the north, and some families 
have the washing done in the house every two weeks, exactly 
like English and Americans. 

In the old towns, the construction of the houses makes this 
almost impossible. There is no place for drying, and no con- 
veniences for washing or ironing, as these were no part of 
family work when the house was built. The upper room is 
a large open space, with lines, upon which the soiled linen is 
hung, and has one or two large chests, in which some of it is 



168 PEASANT LIFE LN GERMANY. 

packed. We confess, we could never get over the feeling that 
"pestilence .must walk by noonday" in such a house, and the 
arrangements for sink-drains and water-closets are still more 
repulsive. How refined and cultivated people can live in re- 
signation to them, we cannot imagine. But the bad con- 
struction of the houses is not owing entirely to the ignorance 
of the dark ages. Houses which are not more than three 
years old, and where dwell the highest dignitaries of the land, 
have the private apartments opening directly into the parlor 
and dining-room, without the cleanliness of water or the de- 
cency of a screen, and families who have a honse in town and 
country, and in summer a large garden, where ladies prome- 
nade in satin, velvet, and point-lace, do the cooking in a kitchen 
so dark, persons can scarcely distinguish each other, and the 
door of the privy opening into it, exactly by the stove and 
table where all preparations are made, with no other aperture 
for ventilation. We have traveled much over American 
wilds, and among the most rude of new settlers, and never 
found anything quite so barbarous. The good housewives 
who cooked here, could speak two or three languages, 
and go into ecstacies over paintings and statuary, and dis- 
coursed and dilated with the utmost self-gratulation, upon the 
heathenish English and Americans, who " knew nothing of 
art." 

These incongruities strike us everywhere : the high appre- 
ciation of beauty in the fine arts, and an utter insensibility to 
beauty and comfort in the daily life and family arrangements. 
There will often be in the house a fine picture or elegant 
articles of china, and the most exquisite little statuettes, while 
the table furniture is of the most common kind ; knives and 
forks, such as one never before saw used, except in cooking, and 



HOUSEKEEPING. 169 

table etiquette like that we find among backwoodsmen. A 
great black loaf will be handed round for each one to cut & 
slice with his own knife, no salt-spoon or butter-knife, and no 
order in arranging the table. We might possibly find the 
same in many American families of the same rank, but we 
should not find also, such articles of taste and luxury to feast 
the eyes upon. 

If some gentleman writer would know the true, unmistake- 
able test of good housekeeping, let him look at the mops, dish- 
cloths, kitchen towels and lamp-wipers. These will tell the 
story better than fine damask table linen or good dinners, and 
if they are all rags and smut he may be sure disorder reigns 
through the household. In these old towns, where the houses 
are so thick-set, and a family on every floor, these articles are 
exposed to view in the most unfortunate manner for their repu- 
tation. Along under the back windows are lines upon which 
they are strung to dry, and we in this way see the internal 
economy of twenty households at a glance, and dripping from 
the fourth and fifth stories come the rinsings from the floor-pails 
and dish-tubs, of a color and consistency to give no favorable 
impression of what they have left behind. We should not enter 
into these details if we had not been obliged to hear continually 
of the barbarity of Americans. One man has been there and 
comes back to say he could not eat, the people were such pigs 
at table : a lady has been there and describes American women 
as sitting always in rocking-chairs, and never taking the least 
interest in household matters, which we have no doubt was true 
of many that she saw. They have heard that Americans never 
have any household or even personal linen ; and because there 
are no galleries of art they conclude we are heathen, and live 
like brutes ; while it is true, on the contrary, that there is more 

8 



170 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

of beauty in art in one American city, than in five European 
cities, but it is scattered about in kitchens and sleeping-rooms, 
and private apartments, and exercised upon what promotes 
daily comfort, instead of being collected in a few halls and 
salons, where a few may congregate to admire, while the 
masses are walking upon rough boards, and in hourly contact 
and association with such coarseness and filth as we cannot re- 
concile with refinement and cultivation. The houses in Ameri- 
can cities for which clerks and mechanics pay a rent of five 
or six hundred dollars, are arranged with reference to the 
utmost comfort and delicacy, and those who occupy them must 
feel the refining and elevating influence far more than they 
could in gazing a few hours each week at fine pictures, which 
is all the time they would have to devote to them. Yet to the 
fine pictures we have no objections, and shall be glad when 
wealth and taste enable us to furnish our houses or public halls 
-nth productions of the fine arts. But to say we are behind 
Europe in a love of the beautiful, in all that indicates refine- 
ment, and elegance, and cultivation, is so far from being true, 
that we are fifty or a hundred years in advance, and this con- 
clusion is one which has been forced upon us by inches, and so 
contrary to our expectations, that we stand dumb with amaze- 
ment as we contemplate all these things. 

But the most northern cities have adopted more of English 
comforts, and we find as we leave the south that the wonders 
of art diminish. There will be perhaps in each city a gallery 
of paintings, but there will not be a dozen, and artists are not 
in such abundance. Strange as it is, in an inverse ratio, the 
people are more intelligent, and the homes more beautiful. In 
Hamburg are a great number of English people, who have 
given an English air to the streets and houses, and in many of 



ART IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. 171 

the farming districts at the north the cultivation is more after 
the English manner. The land is not so divided, the houses 
are large, neat and commodious, and hedgerows are blooming 
around many a garden and field. 

But Bremen is still thoroughly German, yet in the comfort 
of her homes far in advance of southern cities. Each family 
occupies a separate house, and those of the upper and middle 
classes have the genuine air of comfort and neatness in all their 
arrangements. The housekeepers are more thorough, and the 
cooking on a more modern plan, which consumes far less time, 
and is not less palatable. The servants, too, have more self- 
reliance, and are treated in a way to give them more self-respect. 
In almost every house, even of the mechanics and small trades- 
people, there is a carpet, and the parlors of the rich have quite 
an American appearance. Yet there will be here more articles 
of taste than in a Fifth Avenue salon, and an arrangement 
which shows more individuality. They do not look so much as 
if the upholsterer finished them to suit his own ideas, and never 
anywhere have we seen such dainty work-baskets as will meet 
the eye in almost every lady's parlor, and all manner of taste- 
ful apparatus for busy fingers. The parlor, too, is occupied by 
the ladies when at work, instead of being shut up for callers 
and parties, and when comfort and taste are united in a Ger- 
man home, there can be nothing more truly near to perfection. 



CHAPTER XI. 

VALLEY OF THE RHINE — COMMERCE LUTHER — GUT'lENBERG, 

An Englishman in ascending the Rhine, soliloquizes after 
this fashion : " The Rhine is no doubt a historical river ; but 
the political economist reads history in its stream differently 
from the scholar and antiquarian. This river has been flowing 
these two thousand years through the centre of European 
civilization ; yet, how little industry or traffic upon its waters ! 
not one river barge in ten miles of river. Is not this the effect 
of faulty social economy, of bad government, of restrictive 
freedom among the twenty or thirty millions of people dwelling 
in communication with this great water-way ? In America, 
rivers not half a century old to any human knowledge are 
teeming with floating craft, exchanging industry for industry 
between rising cities and communities of free self-governing men. 

"Is it not a bitter historical satire on the feudal institutions 
which have so long reigned on either side of this river ? It 
flows stately and silently through vast populations of feudally- 
governed countries, and like one of its own dignified old barons, 
caring little for commerce, industry, and civilization, but sweep- 
ing in lonely grandeur between noble castles of former days, 
modern fortifications, decaying towns, military and custom- 
house sentinels and functionaries, and beneath viue-dotted hills, 
around which the laboring man climbs and toils and lives as he 

1T2 



VALLEY OF THE RHINE. 173 

did a thousand years ago, without improvement or advance of any 
importance in his social condition. Is this the Rhine, the ancient 
Rhine — the Rhine that boasts of commerce, literature, science, 
*aw, government, religion, having all sprung up in modern times 
upon its banks — this river, with half a dozen steamers carrying 
idle lady and gentlemen passengers up and down to view the 
scenery, and a solitary barge here and there creeping along its 
sides ? Truly the American rivers, under the democratical 
American governments and social system, have shot ahead, in 
half a century, of this European river under the aristoeratical 
European government and social system, although the Europ- 
ean has had the start of the American streams by fifteen hun- 
dred or two thousand years. When Prince Metternich sits in 
his window-seat in his castle of Johannisberg, reading in some 
book of travels about the Ohio, or Mississipi, or Hudson, all 
teeming with the activity and civilizing industry of free unre- 
stricted men, what may be his thoughts as he lifts his eyes 
from the book, and looks down upon the Rhine. It is here 
that the American traveler may be allowed to prose, at long 
and at large, upon his favorite topics — the superiority of Ameri 
can institutions and government. He may begin his glorifica- 
tions at Cologne and end them at Basle, without interruption." 

We were amused in reading the soliloquizings of a young 
Frenchman, made about the same time, and also by a political 
economist, to see with what different eyes he beheld the same 
objects, and how things were magnified by a different educa- 
tion and limited observation. He had never been to America 
and seen no larger or nobler fiver than the Rhine, and had 
evidently read very little of the Ohio or Mississippi, and their 
wondrous commerce. 

He begins with the same exclamation : " The Rhine ! tlio 



174 FEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

girdle and the rampart of Germany, and upon whose borders 
she seems, in gratitude, to have accumulated all that she has 
of the most precious and the most beautiful — fertile plains, 
sombre forests, famous vineyards, laughing and luxurious 
valleys, romantic heights, majestic ruins, touching and marvel- 
ous legends — in a word, all that can please the eye, charm the 
mind, and fill the imagination. Let me describe to you + his 
valley, the most beautiful and interesting in the world — the 
most beautiful, thanks to nature — the most interesting, thanks 
to the indefatigable industry of its happy people ! 

" In order to appreciate it we must descend the Rhine, from 
Basle in Switzerland to its mouth in the North Sea, and what 
traveler, whether economist or pleasure seeker, can pass these 
beautiful countries without being struck with their industry, 
and these cities, which have been .known from the earliest ages 
and have enriched the world with their products ?" 

He then begins with Switzerland, and dwells upon the fertility 
of its valleys ; the hum of busy industry in its shops, its farm- 
houses and fields, and the pleasant sound of lowing cattle and 
bleating sheep upon her hillsides. Her five great lakes, Con- 
stance, Geneva, Zurich, Villes Forestieres, and Bienne, united by 
rivers, the principal of which are the Rhine and the Aar, give 
her all the desirable facilities of navigation, and upon them are 
floating, in all their glory, 25 steamboats ! with importations 
amounting to 1,876,191 quintals. 

To counect Switzerland with the navigable portion of the 
Rhine are three railroads, one of which passes through Alsatia, 
where so much of the raw cotton of America is spun and woven, 
and then reexported to be stamped. The finest threads of 
France in wool and cotton are spun by the peasantry among the 
villages of the Vosgian Mountains, a people who speak German 



VALLEY OF THE RHINE. 175 

but are entirely French in their sympathies. In the revolution 
of '48 no entreaties could move them to aid their German 
brethren in their attempts to form a united German nation. 
They preferred to remain where they were, and with many 
other provinces in western Germany, like French laws and 
French customs the best. 

But we cannot follow our traveler through all his glorifica- 
tions of this great commercial region, and will go on to 
Manheim and Mayence, from which cities commence the 
running of steamers and rafts with the exports of the country, 
to be delivered in Holland and sent across the sea to England 
and Russia, or America. 

Holland is without forests, and Germany supplies her with 
wood. This is transported in great rafts, and wherever your 
eye falls upon the Rhine you see these immense barges laden 
with the products of the Black Forest and the Odenwald. It 
is said that in China whole villages are seen moving down the 
river upon a network of bamboo, and these wood-trains have a 
similar appearance. At one extremity are twenty oars, and at 
the other twenty-two, with seven times as many rowers. A boat 
goes on before to announce the arrival of the train, and sixteen 
or twenty other boats carry the anchors and cables. Upon the 
raft or train is a complete household establishment, as it moves 
slowly, and cannot stop to dine by the way. There is a little 
house or hut, for those who have charge of the anchors, five or 
six for the rowers, each of which will accommodate fifty 
persons ; then there are the pilots and cooks, with their aides-de- 
camp, a kitchen, wash-house, bakery, slaughter-house, magazine 
for provisions, and stables — the whole equipage requiring five 
hundred men. 

In a single voyage one train consumes from forty to fifty 



176 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

thousand pounds of bread, twelve to twenty thousand pounds 
of meat, ten to fifteen thousand pounds of cheese, ten to fifteen 
quintals * of butter, eight to ten quintals of salt, sixty to 
eighty of vegetables, and from five to six hundred hogs, 
heads of beer. And to give a complete idea of the grandeur 
of these trains, he adds, that in the tariff bureaux, they value 
the stores, anchors, and utensils which do not pay duty, at 
six thousand quintals. Every year are transported in this 
way from sixty to seventy thousand cubic yards of oak, 
and from seventy to eighty thousand of pine and fir ; but 
the trains are small at the commencement of the voyage, and 
increase from city to city, and at the junction of the different 
rivers which contribute from the treasures of the forest through 
which they run. 

Next he embarks upon " one of those large and maguificent 
steamboats which pass every moment in communication between 
London, Kotterdam and Basle," and says : " What a spectacle ! 
What life and animation ! In vain will you seek in any other 
part of the world a steam navigation so extensive and active ! 
Yet it is only since 1821 that it began ; at that time there were 
only two small boats running between Cologne and Mayence. 
In one year the bridge at Cologne was raised fifteen hundred 
and eighty times for steamers to pass, laden with travelers and 
merchandize, and the number of travelers has increased in 
ten years from a few thousands to 150,000, so that this great 
river may be said to be covered with a floatiug population, and 
along its shores are the evidences of this passage, in the money 
they have put in circulation, the impetus given to commerce, 
and the influence upon the manners of the people, and the in* 

* A quintal is a hundred pounds. 



VALLEY OF THE RHINE. 177 

crease of wealth in the cities and villages. One company rea- 
lized in a year, at a time when there were five others, a revenue 
of $70,000 ! and all have transported in a year from 12,000,000 
to 13,000,000 of quintals of merchandize'. Surely the English- 
man must have shut his eyes as he passed this way, or else he 
had seen things so much more marvelous that it appeared very 
trifling, and not worth recording. 

"It is not strange that a German should denominate it ' the 
river of rivers, the glory and pride of Europe.' Among the 
highest peaks of the hoary Alps is the snowy summit of St. 
Gotherd ; around him rise many other peaks of fearful altitude 
— the Furca, the Vogelsberg, the Erispalt and the Spliigen, 
but none so high as he. From within this mighty mass of ori- 
ginal mountains, amidst eternal glaciers and endless forests of 
dark pines, springs a stream — a wild, small, hill-torrent, like a 
hundred others from the same source, which seems no more 
than any of its fellows. It appears to take its rise but to 
perish after it has run, like them, a brief and troubled career. 
But if the wanderer follows its waters, he will find that, like a 
native avalanche, it gathers strength and size and greatness as 
it goes, until uniting with another branch from the same source 
at Dessentis, in the Grisons, and with a third at Razerus, in 
the same canton, it marches majestically plainwards, like a 
mountain giant, rushing through the lake of Constance, bound- 
ing with a fearful leap, over the ledges of rock which intersect 
its path at Schaffhausen, flowing by the northern bounds of 
Switzerland, and washing the walls of Basle, finally it courses 
with untroubled career, thence to the distant northern ocean on 
the coast of Holland — this stream is the Rhine, and this ita 
course — the first river of Europe, and the pride and glory of 
Germany." 

8* 



178 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

These are the reflections of a native of its banks, and we do 
nut wonder that it is to him surpassing fair and beautiful, a 
golden link with diamonds set to bind him to his Fatherland. 

To us, too, it is beautiful, and we have reveled m its history, 
and the legends which cover every castle-crowned peak upon its 
shores, and spread their charm over every hillside ana valley, 
with not less interest than the hundred tourists who have 
described it. But we have also seen the mountains, and lakes, 
and rivers of the Western Continent, and to one who has tra- 
versed the whole length of the St. Lawrence, winding among 
its Thousand Isles, and floating on its broad bosom to where it 
meets the sea — been struck dumb with awe beneath the cliffs 
which overhang the Saguenay, and stretch away in wild gran- 
deur among the forests which yet no man hath penetrated — 
crossed the great lakes, white with a thousand sails — traced the 
Ohio and Mississippi from source to mouth — become familiar 
with every wild glen among the Highlands of the Hudson, and 
skipped through all the years of childhood in the valley of the 
Connecticut, there can be little in natural scenery even among 
the vine-clad hills which border the Rhine, to elicit exclama- 
tions of wonder. Yet we could linger many a week among its 
enchantments, and not weary contemplating the beauties which 
nature has here so freely lavished, or in listening to the marvel- 
ous tales which every person you meet, from prince to peasant, 
delights to tell. But, like the Englishman whom we quoted, 
our special province is among the people, and we must spend 
only so much time in castles as will help us to illustrate life in 
the cottage. He says there has been scarcely any social im- 
provement in a thousand years, among the classes we wish to 
portray. Here are the words of an old chronicler concerning 
them in the fifteenth century : 



RANKS AND GRADES. 179 

" There are among the German folk much distinction of rank, 
and many grades of that distinction. The first grade consists 
of the clergy ; the second of the nobles, in which latter there 
are several varieties, such as princes, counts, barons, knights, 
and gentle-folk ; the third, of the burghers and peasantry. 

" The princes take the first place in honor and in power, for 
they have broad lands and a wide extent of territory. The 
others take precedence according to their station — counts, 
barons, knights, and gentlefolks, but all sit below the princes 
of the land. When it so happens that the emperor displeases 
the nobles, they absolve themselves from their allegiance to 
him, and declare themselves and their followers free from his 
rule. This class considers itself not a little debased when one 
of its members follows an honest occupation, and descends 
either to become a merchant or manufacturer ; also, if he weds 
with an ignoble woman, or dwells as a recognized burgher in 
any city. They live not in communities, but abiding altogether 
in their castles, either on the peaks of mountains or in the 
depths of the impassable forests of our land, or in its spacious 
solitary plains, they deem themselves wholly independent. 
Their chief pleasure is the chase, and it also forms their prin- 
cipal dependence for food ; the laws made by them against en- 
croachment on this their privilege, are, therefore, very severe. 
They hold that the wild beasts of the forest are theirs, for 
their use and gratification alone ; and it is in some places pun- 
ished with the loss of both eyes, in others with sheer decapita- 
tation for an inferior to trespass on their preserves. There is, 
however, a permission understood to kill all noxious animals and 
useless beasts of prey. 

11 These nobles live lustily in their castles, eating and drink- 
ing of the best at will, and they also clothe themselves richly — 



180 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

especially the women— who are all over decked with costly orna- 
ments of gold and precious stones, when they go forth, or when 
they give a grand entertainment. In their excursions they are 
ever followed by a large train of idle people, pertaining to 
their households ; and they are known from the common people 
wherever they be met, by their proud air and their measured 
haughty step. But they mostly go on horseback, however short 
the distance, for they consider it unseemly in them, and a 
degradation to their state, to walk. Yet will these proud men 
not hesitate to set on and rob the helpless wayfarer, and de- 
prive him of his honest wealth, whenever an opportunity offers 
itself to them. If a feud break out between two of them, or 
if the one does to the other an injury or wrong, each collects 
his vassals and retainers, and then they ravage and destroy 
each others lands and property with fire and sword, like great 
potentates or sovereign princes. 

" The burghers or citizen-folk are considered the lowest in 
the scale of honor and rank in the German Empire. Of these 
some be subjects of the emperor, and some be the subjects 
of the prelates or princes in whose territories they dwell. 
Those who serve the emperor directly enjoy considerable privi- 
leges ; their cities are generally known as free cities of the 
empire. Every year they select among themselves a chief or 
local ruler, known by the title of Burger-Meister, in whom they 
vest the supreme power of the community. His judgments in 
all cases of crime or misdeed are based upon reason and the 
ancient customs of his class, but an appeal lies from them to the 
emperor. 

" In every great city two classes of citizens are to be met with 
— the first, noble born, being generally the younger sons of the 
great families of the empire ; the second, the common folk, 



RANKS AND GRADES. 181 

^onsisting of mechanicals, manufacturers, and merchants. The 
former follow no occupation publicly — neither traffic nor busi- 
ness of any kind — they style themselves patricians, and mono- 
polize the offices of honor and profit in the magistracy of their 
respective cities ; on the latter devolve all the burden of trade 
and all the weight of labor. Though these may acquire great 
riches, they are seldom recognized by their noble fellow citizens; 
and it is with great difficulty that one of them ever succeeds in 
gaining a position among these proud men. They are, notwith- 
standing, eligible to the highest offices of the magistracy; but 
it must be added they very seldom attain to them. 

" In Germany, the cities and towns are generally well situated; 
either planted proudly on the summit of a hill, or built beside 
the course of some broad river, or lying in a rich and fertile 
plain, and they are ever surrounded with a thick wall, in some 
cases strengthened by deep dykes ; in all defended by solid 
towers and bulwarks. 

11 But the lowliest condition that be, is, however, that of the 
serf or peasant who tills the earth and lives in open villages or 
lonely cottages. A wretched life these creatures lead of it. 
They hold scant communion with each other, and live with 
their families and their cattle all alone. Their dwellings are 
rude huts of mud and wattles, thatched with straw. Their 
food is black, sour bread, with thin porridge or pulse soup. 
Their only drink is water or milk. Their garb is a coarse gown 
and a wide straw hat. Their subsistence is derived principally 
from supplying the towns with the produce which they raise 
from the soil. These poor people never know rest ; early and 
late they are obliged to toil ; their existence depends upon 
their labor. The greater part of their time is the property of 
their lord, who may compel them to work for him as long as 



182 PEASANT LIFE IN GEEMANT. 

he lists, without fee or reward ; and the severity with which 
they have heen treated, on many occasions has caused serious 
insurrections in the country. There is no steel so tempered 
that it may not snap ; no bow so tough that it may not 
break." 

It was about the same time that the bow did snap. The 
light of the Keformation exposed the cruelty and corruption of 
those they had so long obeyed, and when once rebellion had 
broken out, the excesses of the peasantry were reckless and 
ruthless in proportion to the blind stupidity with which they 
had hitherto submitted. They learned that it was possible for 
them also to cast off their chains, and demand rights, which, 
if not granted willingly, they could gain by force, and in the 
most beautiful districts of the Rhine country, their atrocities 
are described as almost incredible, and the whole country as one 
scene of carnage and ruin, whilst they were in arms. 

The struggle between the bishops, nobles, and serfs, is called 
the " Servile War," and the rebels characterized as a rabble 
rout ; known at the time by the name of the " Hell crowd." 
" They burned and destroyed churches and castles, monasteries 
and convents ; murdering without scruple, and driving the 
nobles, their masters, fugitives before them in every direc- 
tion." It did not occur to these bishops and nobles to ask 
how came these people to be such " a rabble rout ?" how they 
came to be so exasperated, and to feel towards the " nobles, 
their masters," such a bitter hatred, and to think it was a deed 
of justice and mercy to drive them from the land. A noble 
abbess writes to a noble baron, •' We cry to you for aid with a 
sorrowful heart in the deepest dool, for the evils we have suf- 
fered at the hands of these wicked men, who rob and plunder 
us as they list, and threaten our lives if we offer any resistance 



LUTHEE. 183 

or objection to them." And another noble baron draws a 
picture still more terrible in details, " of the frightful devasta- 
tions of these brutal wretches." Alas, how long had they 
cried in vain to bishops, and barons, who had never treated 
them as possessing human feeling, and compelled them to a 
life of slavery, for centuries, during which they had been 
beaten and murdered for the slightest offences ? 

It was in the neighborhood of Mayence, that this rebellion 
originated ; but it extended far and wide before it was finally 
quelled by the archbishop of the diocese, and his generals, and 
half a century elapsed before the country recovered from the 
blight which destruction so terrible and wasting had cast over it. 

It was upon the northern part of the Khine valley, and not 
upon its immediate banks, that Luther was born ; but there is 
some fact or legend concerning him in every city and village, 
in every castle and cottage in Prussia, from north to south, 
from east to west. In the Protestant districts he is regarded 
with an almost superstitious reverence, and in the Catholic, as 
a fiend ; and many stories, if true, would prove that he did not 
on earth attain unto perfection ; which indeed he never pro- 
fessed to do. The house in which he was born, and in which 
he is also said to have died, is now converted into a free school 
for poor children, and there are exhibited his study cap and 
coat, some books and other articles, which there can be no 
doubt belonged to him. In his biographies he is called the son 
of a wool-comber ; but here he is said to be the son of a miner, 
and as the town Isleben, not far from Dusseldorf, is in a mining 
country, we presume his father found employment in the mines, 
as most of the people do at the present day. 

The homage which is paid to Guttenburg is universal, and 
nvery tongue delights to do him honor ; but as his birth was near 



184 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

a century before, there is nothing so tangible concerning him as 
concerning the reformers, and as in his lifetime he was scarcely 
known out of Mayence, there is little definite knowledge to be 
gained of his habits. The house where he was born still 
exists, and also where the first printing office was established. 
Archimedes really planned a lever to move the world ; but 
Guttenburg had not the least idea that the little type's, which 
he first succeeded in making movable, were to be the real 
instruments by which the earth was to be shaken from its 
foundation. In his time very little was accomplished, so far as 
the highest object of printing was concerned, and books were 
still so expensive that few but princes could own them, and 
knowledge had scarcely more circulation for the wonderful in- 
vention. In all collections of books and antiquities, we see 
specimens of the first attempts at printing, and when machinery 
had done its work, the pen had still much to do to perfect a 
volume. All the title pages and important letters were drawn 
by artists, in colors, a work requiring much time and immense 
labor, arid not for a hundred years were these things done by 
a press, though the small letters were nearly as perfect at the 
beginning, as now. 

For the peasantry or serfs to read was considered some- 
thing as inappropriate to their rank, as to live in baronial 
halls, and no efforts were made to teach them — they were not 
even allowed to learn, till within the last half century. Yet it 
is not quite true that no improvement is to be observed in their 
condition during a thousand years. From their ranks rose 
merchants and mechanics, and when these were formed into 
corporations or guilds, they became so powerful that they could 
enforce a species of justice, and by them the power of feudal- 
ism was often curbed if not broken. 



FEUDAL ROBBERS. 185 

We never had any remarkable reverence for those who dwelt 
in castles, and the more we know of their lives, the more we 
wonder that so many should still like to boast an ancestry 
among their numbers. They were little else than a band of 
highway robbers, as our old chronicle remarks, and obtained 
their living entirely by oppression and exactions. Upon all the 
roads they kept agents, or emissaries, to demand of travelers 
tribute, which they knew it was useless to refuse, as death or a 
dungeon was their only alternative. An archbishop of Cologne 
having built a castle, appointed a governor to surperintend it. 
On being asked how he was to be furnished with a revenue to 
support his household, and promote the interests of his lord ; 
the prelate merely observed that his castle stood at the junction 
of four roads ! By the plunder of the honest wayfarer, were 
the highest dignitaries of church and state maintained. 

It was a citizen of Mayence who first proposed a league 
among the inhabitants of cities and towns for mutual protection 
against these marauders, which resulted in what was termed 
the " Rhenish League," and by depriving them of the revenues 
they so unjustly obtained, they were forced to desert their 
castles ; and the ruins which are scattered over all the hills and 
valleys of the Rhine, owe the picturesque state to whicn they 
have been reduced, to the energetic measures of the people, in 
depopulating the strongholds of a set of idle vagabonds who 
lived by tyrann} and rapine. 



CHAPTER XII. 

CITIES OP THE RHINE LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 

In the histories of the cities and towns upon the Rhine, we 
find them in continual warfare from the very first centuries. 
The tyranny of the bishops, who were also the highest officers of 
state, was resisted by the nobles, and the burghers and trades- 
people rebelled against both. The three largest towns, Co- 
logne, Bonn, Coblentz, were built by the Romans, the last before 
the Christian era, and the other two during the first century. 
The Germans, whom they conquered, are described by Caesar 
and Tacitus, who speak of them as a " well-formed race, with 
blue eyes, fair hair, and a bold aspect. From their earliest 
youth they were trained to arms, and therefore they were a 
warlike people. Religious feeling, love of freedom and chas- 
tity of manners, were their virtues ; drunkenness, debauchery 
and a love of fighting, were their vices." No sooner were they 
conquered by the Romans than the Franks coveted their fertile 
valleys, and lying between these two great nations, they were 
for centuries the scene of their barbarous and desolating wars. 
When Attila with his hordes came down from the north, the 
Roman yoke was entirely thrown off, and the French finally 
became masters of the whole country. 

186 



CITIES OF THE RHINE. 187 

But as we see everywhere else in Germany, there was never 
any unity between places only a little distance from each other, 
and while Cologne was ever struggling to be free, Bonn was 
content with the most abject submission to monarchical power, 
and its citizens were ever ready to aid king or prelate in assaults 
upon their sister city. Yet from the time of the Romans until 
the French revolution, Cologne preserved a species of liberty. 
By Otto the Great, in the tenth century, it was made one of the 
free cities of the empire, and in the thirteenth century joined 
the Hanseatic league and became one of the most influential of 
the confederacy in wealth and commerce. So early as the 
fourteenth century, the cotton and silk manufactures employed 
eighty thousand looms, and schools of art, painting, sculpture 
and design, received the highest encouragement. In 1333, it 
was visited by Petrarch, who exclaims, " How glorious is this 
city ! What a wonder to find such a spot in a barbarous land. 
WLiit dignity in the men, what grace and tenderness in the 
women I" In 14*71, the first printing-press was established 
within its walls, and the first book printed, and two years later 
reprinted in London. Alas 1 that so much glory and prosperity 
should be blotted out by tyranny and superstition. Only a few 
years later the city saw thrice expelled from its precincts all 
that contributed most to its wealth and grandeur. 

First, 80,000 Jews were banished in one day, through the 
influence of the Christian clergy, and then the great body of 
weavers, in consequence of an insurrection among them, and 
1,100 looms burnt in the presence and by the order of the 
government. Such blindness and infatuation seem scarcely 
credible, when it must be evident that with them would disap- 
pear an industry which must be a great source of wealth to all. 
But they scattered about in other towns, and set up their looms 



188 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

in many smaller places, thus diffusing a benefit which had bee? 
hitherto confined to one, and to this day Cologne has not 
recovered from this blight ; but even this was not enough, and in 
1618, just before the thirty years' war, all Protestants were 
forbidden to remain within its walls, and 1,400 houses were 
vacated, and all that remained of trade and industry paralyzed 
forever. It is now only interesting for what it has been, and is 
visited by every tourist to see what remains of the wonderful in 
ancient art, of which it contains perhaps more than any other 
city in Germany. 

In Coblentz, there was the same struggle between the gov- 
ernment and the people, though never the same excesses and 
misfortune. Before the thirteenth century the power was 
entirely in the hands of the nobles, consisting of some three 
hundred families, who looked upon the citizens as only instru- 
ments to minister to their aggrandizement. But they were at 
length compelled to yield, and admit the tradespeople to share 
the offices of state. The artisans at that time were divided 
into seven guilds or companies — cutlers, weavers, bakers, shoe- 
makers, smiths, tanners and vintners. As soon as higher posi- 
tion was the reward of their industry, there was a marvelous 
increase in their exertion, and the city dates from this period 
her elevation to the rank of one of the most opulent, and con- 
spicuous cities in civilized Europe. 

The tradition is handed down and still believed by the people 
of Mayence, that it was in their city that the vision of the Holy 
Cross occurred to the Emperor Oonstantine, and the fieid over 
which he was marching when it appeared is pointed out. That 
the Eoman legions under Oonstantine were encamped here, there 
can be no doubt, and the Christian religion was early preached 
here by those who had listened to the preaching of the apostles. 



LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 189 

The first bishop is stated by historians to have been a pupil 
of St. Peter, which is confidently believed by many among the 
wise and ignorant. That the highest offices in its gift were 
conferred by the Komish church equally upon the most humble 
as well as noble in birth, if otherwise worthy, has ever been its 
most redeeming virtue, and the people of Mayence ascribe the 
greatest blessings conferred upon their city in government and 
laws to one who was the son of a wheelwright. His name was 
Willigis, and his reign in the tenth century, the golden era in 
their history. Here, as we have elsewhere stated, Charlemagne 
was born, and his palace of Ingdheim stood just without its 
walls. 

There is scarcely a foot of ground in the whole of Germany 
that is not consecrated by some interesting event, authenticated 
by history, and around each deed of valor superstition has 
wound a thousand threads, till the tales of genii and giants, of 
sage and seer, of knight and lady-love, peasant and priest, cover 
the land like a net-work. Among the people, the belief in signs 
and wonders, ghosts and hobgoblins, is universal, and every act 
of their lives is influenced by some light or shadow which has 
fallen upon their path, and which they believe to have been 
cast by some supernatural being. Especially is every castle 
hung with legendary lore, and to each turret and balcony is 
attached the mystic drapery of a tale of love, or the doing of 
a bold knight in armor. We cannot dwell long with these, 
though they are not the least correct illustrations of the charac- 
ter of the people. 

Ingelheim signifies the angeVs home, and it is said to have 
derived its name from the peculiar guardian care of the spirits 
of the other world over the king who inhabited it. He awoke 
three times from a dream in which he had been commanded to 



190 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

go forth and steal, " Arise, arise !" said the voice, " equip and 
arm, and go forth and steal. It is the will of the Lord that 
thou steal this night some of thy neighbor's goods. Tarry not 
to obey this command, 'or life and throne may not long abide 
with thee. Thus says the Omnipotent." When he had thus 
spoken, the angel moved his pinions, and was soon lost in a rose- 
colored mass of light. 

The story in all its amplifications would fill twenty pages, 
but a much shorter version will answer our purpose. Not dar- 
ing to disobey an angel's words, the king arose and went 
forth, muttering continually by the way, " What can it mean, 
the whole earth is mine, and yet I am commanded to steal ? 
Would that I had never been born ; but I must obey the will 
of the Lord. Most severe have I been in punishing thieves, 
yet here I am on a thief's errand ! — God help me." 

He sought the forest which skirted the domains of the palace, 
and permitted his steed to go where he would — considering it 
an indication of Providence when he turned to a path different 
from the one he should have chosen. When he had gone 
a little way, he was accosted by a man clad from head to foot 
in steel, black as jet. Plumes of the same sable hue nodded 
from his helmet, and the steed he proudly rode was also black. 
The two rode side by side without speaking. The king often 
attempting to rid himself of his unwelcome companion, by spur- 
ring on, but soon found it was useless ; the horse he rode was 
not less swift of foot than his own, and he at length cried halt, 
and challenged the knight to single combat. A fierce contest 
ensued, in which the king was victorious, but admiring the 
courage and prowess of his antagonist, immediately offered 
him pardon and friendship, at the same time asking his name, 
and the occasion of his being out at such an hour in the forest. 



LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 191 

"I am Elbegast," answered the man, and this was all that 
was needed to make known his life and present purpose. He 
was a noted outlaw, and the terror of all the country round. 
Many a reward had the king offered for him, and many an 
effort made to get .possession of him and his band. Now here 
he was, but without any idea into whose .hands he had fallen. 
This the king concealed, and expressed great joy that he had 
found so goodly company, and bound on the same errand as 
himself. 

" Where shall we go ?" was the next question, and Charle- 
magne, to try the loyalty of his new-found friend, proposed that 
they rob the Emperor's treasury. But what was his surprise 
and joy, to hear the robber swear that nothing would induce 
him to lay hands upon aught that belonged to the king. 
"But," said he, '*" I will right willingly repair to the strong 
castle of his kinsman, Eggerich von Eggermond, who married 
the Emperor's sister, and obtained much gold by his favor. 
He is not fit to live. It would be no sin to take all he has, 
and life itself. It is a shame and disgrace that he should be 
suffered to thrive and prosper, while better men iare oppressed. 
Does he not persecute the poor, and plunder the wretched ? 
Has he not betrayed many an innocent man to undeserved 
death ? Let us thither. The little that we can take from the 
riches he has heaped up by the bounty of his sovereign will not 
be missed. Let us thither." 

And so they bestrode their steeds and rode forward to the 
castle of Eggerich von Eggermond. 

The king soon evinced that he was not very expert at pick- 
ing locks and making holes in walls, which led his companion 
to suspect his fidelity, but repeated assertions of his honor 
silenced suspicion, and they at length found themselves withk 



192 PEASANT LIFE EST GERMANY. 

the castle. But Elbegast, who was foremost, was alarmed by 
the voice of a cock, just as he was about to enter the sleeping 
apartment of the knight, which said that the king was near. 
But this information would not have been understood, had he not 
previously eaten of an herb, the virtue of which was to enable 
those who ate it to understand the language of all animals. 
When he listened he learned that the cock was talking to the dog, 
and prompting him to his duty. Quickly he returned and told the 
story, but the king laughed, and ridiculed his fears, saying he 
had heard no footsteps, and seen no indications of princely ar- 
rivals, and bade him return or they should be too late for booty. 
Again he went, but again returned with the same story, and 
said, " If you believe me not, taste yourself the herb, and lis- 
ten." He did so, and sure enough, the cock proved himself 
wiser than his companion. But still he was not to be deterred 
from his object. He had come at the command of the Lord to 
steal, and steal he would. " Go back," said he to the robber, 
"and bring gold, and then we will depart." Again he stood 
beside the couch of the sleeping knight, and stealthily opened 
the strong box, from which he loaded himself with treasure, 
and then came to lay it at the feet of his friend. 
" Well done," said the king, " and now we will go." 
." No," answered the robber, " I will have one thing more — 
there is within the most beautiful caparison for a steed the 
world has ever seen — a saddle and housings of bright gold — 
that I will take, and besides, it is hung all over with little 
silver bells, that make sweet music ! • Yes, I must have that." 
And again he entered, but the first touch of the saddle put the 
bells in motion, and awoke the owner. He arose, crying " My 
sword ! my sword ! Who handles yon harness ?" 

Elbegast quickly concealed himself in a manger ; but the 



LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 193 

manger of a castle, like that of the cottage, was not so far 
off, but he could hear what was said by the aroused sleepers. 

" It is naught," said the wife, " but a dream, or the night- 
mare's fearful vision, but yet it is now three nights that you 
have awakened in the same way ; surely there must be some- 
thing troubling thy mind — some dark secret clouds thy spirit. 
Tell me, I pray thee, what it may be?" With various allure- 
ments, she at length succeeded in obtaining from him, that 
with twelve others he had conspired against the life of the 
king, and how the next morning they were to proceed to the 
castle and fulfill their purpose of taking possession and mur- 
dering those within. 

But the wife did not listen to the plan of destroying her 
brother with approval, and exclaimed, " My brother ! — you 
will murder my brother ! — your king and benefactor ! Nay, 
I would rather see you hanging from a gibbet ! He must know 
if I have to tell him myself." But a brutal blow upon the 
face, silenced her for a time, and Elbegast crawled to the bed- 
side and received upon his glove the stream of blood which 
flowed from the mouth. 

" This," said he, " shall be my witness," and he hastened to 
tell all to his companion, adding, " here is the treasure, fly 
with it to the farthest recesses of the forest, while I return to 
smite dead the monster who plots the life of the king." 

" Nay," said Charlemagne, " what is the king to us — are 
we not outlaws — why should we peril ourselves for his sake ? 
If he is to die, let him die ; for us, let us flee." But whilst 
saying this, he thought, " God be thanked, I now see why it 
was that the angel was so imperative with me. Honor and 
glory and praise unto him that liveth forever. But the robber 
would not listen to a proposal that left the king in danger, and 

9 



194 PEASANT LIFE IN" GERMANY. 

again attempted to enter the castle. But the emperor said, 
" Stay, it is far better that you go in the morning yourself and 
tell what you have heard, and richly you will be rewarded." 

" No ; I can hope for no favor of the king, whatever service 
I may do him now. No, I cannot do this ; yet, in some way, 
he must be saved." His companion then offered to go himself, 
saying, " Well, comrade, be it so ; I will be the messenger to 
the king. Flee you to the forest with our booty, and I will 
speed me to the palace ; soon we will meet again." So they 
parted, and Charlemagne was soon secure within the secret 
chamber of his palace, and Elbegast wended his way sorrow- 
fully to his brethren in the forest. 

The next morning, the household and guard were early 
summoned to be at their posts to await the conspirators, who 
appeared, as the knight had related they intended, and rode 
fearlessly into the court-yard armed to the teeth. But they 
soon found themselves surrounded and in custody, and Eg- 
gerich von Eggermond was arraigned for treason. 

"It is false," said he ; " who dares say this of me : it is 
false — I challenge my accuser." 

" So may it be," replied the emperor; " it shall be settled by 
single combat, to-morrow at sunrise. Prepare to prove yourself 
innocent, or to be found guilty. God speed the right." 

A messenger was dispatched to Elbegast to summon him to 
the combat, and again the emperor assumed his disguise to be 
the bearer of his own dispatches. With joy the robber learned 
he was to be thus honored ; for a duel was, at all times, in those 
days, an affair of distinction, and permitted only to those of 
noble birth — exclusively the privilege of gentlemen. But when 
he arrived at the palace, and heard that his opponent was 
Eggerich von Eggermond, there were no bounds to his exultation 



LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 195 

A. duel was also then a very grand affair, to which a great 
concourse of spectators were summoned, and heralds and trum- 
pets announced the hour of combat ; and God, who knew with 
certainty the guilty and the innocent, was supposed to preside. 
Whoever fell, was believed to be guilty, and the victor hence- 
forth crowned with honors. In a legend, of course, the traitor 
was killed, and shouts of applause filled the air, and " Long 
live the emperor and Elbegast " rung upon a hundred voices. 

When the scene was ended, the king again assumed his 
disguise and appeared to his friend, who immediately recog- 
nized him as his companion in robbery, and trembled for his 
fate. But he was not long in learning that honor and riches 
were to be his reward, instead of disgrace. The castle and 
broad domains of the traitor knight were conferred upon him, 
and the widow was given him for a wife. The remainder of 
his life he was the attached and confidential friend of the king, 
and the palace was called Ingelheim, the " Angels' home," in 
memory of the celestial visit which saved it and the king from 
destruction. 

There is some similar legend connected with every palace in 
which he dwelt, every church and chapel which he built, and 
often there is an appearance of some foundation in truth. 

Opposite his castle lay the towns of Rudesheim and Winkle, 
and it is related that, looking one morning from his window 
upon their sloping hills and smiling valleys as the sun shone 
upon them with peculiar splendor, he thought how beautiful 
a site for vineyards, and resolved to have them planted. 
Whatever a king wishes, can be done, and forthwith he 
obtained from Orleans the cuttings for his new vineyards, and 
in his lifetime saw the hills covered with the most luxuriant 
vines. Of the truth of this we have no doubt ; but it is also 



196 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

related that his affection for this and neighboring vineyards, in 
the vicinity of which he had immense cellars for the deposit of 
his sparkling treasures, lives still, and that his spirit still comes 
to revel among the scenes he loved so well, and to bless the 
soil, that its fertility fail not. 

A poet has rendered this legend into verse ; and the cre- 
dulity which it embodies is to be found among all the peasants 
who train the vines which the mighty conqueror planted with 
his own hands. 

THE SILVER BRIDGE. 

" On the Rhine — the green Rhine — in the soft summer night, 
The vineyards lie sleeping in the soft moon's light ; 
But, lo! there's a shadow on green hill and glade, 
Like the form of a king in his grandeur arrayed. 

" Yes, yes, 'tis the monarch, that erst ruled this land, 
It is old Charlemagne, with his sword in his hand, 
And his crown on his head, and his sceptre of gold, 
And the purple imperial in many a rich fold. 

" Long ages have fled since he lived in this life, 
Whole nations have perished by time or by strife, 
Since he swayed with a power never known from his birth. 
What brings his great spirit to wander on earth ? 

" He has come from his tomb that's in Aix-la-Chapelle ; 
He hath come to the stream which he once loved so well ; 
Not to harm or to blight with his presence the scene, 
But to bless the blithe vineyards by Luna's soft-sheen. 

" The moonbeams they make a brave bridge o'er the Rhine, 
From Winkle to Ingelheim, brightly they shine ; 
Behold by this bridge the old monarch goes over, 
And blesses the flood with the warmth of a lover. 



LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 197 

" He blesses each vineyard, on plain and on hill, 
Each village, each cottage, his blessing doth fill ; 
He blesses each spot, on the shore, on the river, 
Which he loved in his life, which forget he can never. 

" And then from the home that he still loves so well, 
He returns to his tomb that's in Aix-la-Chapelle, 
There to slumber in peace till the old year is over, 
And the vineyards once more woo him back like a lover." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

VINEYARDS CULTURE OF WINE, FLAX AND SILK. 

Vineyards have been the theme of poets in all ages and all 
climes — the "vine-clad hills and vine-covered valleys" have 
been described in all their beauty, and wreathed with every 
charm imagination could invent, and those who train the ten- 
drils and press the purple clusters, are pictured in scarcely less 
glowing colors. There must be some ground for a fancy so 
universal, yet there could be told many truths that would cast 
a little shadow over the brightness. 

We were a long time in learning in what the beauty or the 
poetry of vineyards could consist. Whenever we went into 
the country in the spring, our eyes wandered in every direction 
for the vineyards, but when they were pointed out to us we 
could see nothing which could gain for them their reputation. 
There were long rows of stakes about three feet apart, and 
springing from the earth near them, a dry stock, with a few 
green leaves attached. For aught that we could see, they 
might be fields of beans, and we had really supposed they 
were. It was a sad blow to our enthusiasm, yet we did not sit 
down content with this conclusion, for it could not be that all 
the world had been so mistaken. Yet nearly all summer we 
looked and pondered in vain, there was no special beauty that 
we could discern. As the foliage increased, it was closely 

198 



VINEYARDS. 199 

trimmed, and the new shoots and tendrils were carefully pruned, 
and allowed to climb no higher than three or four feet. But 
we had not yet been among the hills, and walked through the 
valleys. It is only by looking up or down, through the rows, 
that they look so picturesque, and not till the associations of 
the vintage are connected with them that they become truly 
poetical. 

What patient, persevering labor is required during all the 
process of cultivation, from the first day of spring to the last 
of autumn. The snow is scarcely off the ground when the 
women may be seen toiling up the steeps with baskets of 
manure upon their heads, and little hand-spades, with which to 
dig about the roots and between the rows, to fill and spread 
the manure. 

Often upon rocky eminences a soil is entirely made in this 
way, and every particle of nourishment that is needed for the 
plants carried by women upon their heads. Often a long row 
may be seen ascending a narrow pathway, with their burdens, 
slowly and wearily, and then descending to replenish their bas- 
kets. Neither horse nor plough is employed in vine culture, 
but all is accomplished by the patient labor of the hand. How 
early and how late must be their industry, to be in season with 
every department. 

In the fall, in many places, the stalks are bound to the 
stakes, and wound with straw to preserve them from the cold. 
In the spring these must be taken off, and the stakes examined 
and renewed if broken or decayed — the vines again fastened, 
the soil dug and raked, as well as manured, and then kept free 
from weeds, which is mostly done by pulling them and carrying 
them away, instead of hoeing and leaving them to decay, or 
perhaps take root again. 



200 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

There are no fences to guard the vineyards or the fields ; and 
this we have often seen noticed by travelers, who concluded 
from it that the people were wondrous honest, and unruly boys 
with light-fingered propensities, not known in this old world. 
It is like many other conclusions of those who only pass by, 
and know nothing but what a passing glance reveals. As soon 
as the fields produce anything that would tempt the thief, or 
that it would be an injury to the owners to lose, a watch is 
set, and one may see everywhere among the hills and valleys, 
night and day, these watchers, who are employed and paid by 
government. When the harvests are ripening, a man may not 
even enter his own field without permission, as at a distance 
the watcher would not be able to distinguish individuals, and 
could not be continually called from his post to ascertain. 
When any particular harvest is ripe, the police fix the day for 
commencing the labor of reaping, mowing, or gathering. 
Whilst the laborers are there the watch is not necessary, and 
if any one neglects to obey, his field is left unprotected, or he 
must have it done at his own expense. 

The expense of fences, where the proprietaries are so small, 
would be enormous, and indeed quite impossible, and in the 
early part of the season it is not necessary to provide against 
the intrusion of cattle, because they are all safe in their stalls. 
Boys are the same all the world over, and thieves also, we pre- 
sume, and the delicious fruits of Germany would be no more 
safe here than in other countries, without some sure defence. 
We were once walking under a plum tree, and thoughtlessly 
plucked one which hung so low that it touched our lips as we 
passed. Our companion at the time was a young peasant girl, 
and she was frightened beyond measure, looked eagerly around 
for the police, who, however, did not happen to see this instance 



VINEYARDS. 201 

of unlawful plunder. In some royal gardens the plucking of a 
spear of grass, or the tiniest flower, is punished with a heavy 
fine, sufficient to deter any ordinary person from committing 
theft. And no one can complain of such laws, where all royal 
gardens are public, and royal parks open to whoever pleases 
to walk in them and conduct himself properly. NothiDg can 
be more free than amusement in Germany. Forests, fields, 
and gardens are open to all, and no other country presents, on 
festal days, so orderly and well-behaved companies. 

The cultivation of the vine is as old as the world, and its 
juicy products form a conspicuous feature in all histories and 
romances that treat of the courts and revels of princes. In 
feudal times it was the one great luxury, and the cellars of 
these lordly castles were grand receptacles for the fruits of the 
vineyard. We have seen in one or two a tun which would 
hold 800 ordinary hogsheads, or 283,200 bottles, and in many, 
those which would hold half this quantity. 

Many districts in Germany are vast vineyards, yet it is not 
upon every hill and valley that the vine will grow. It must be 
a sunny slope or a sheltered valley, and these must be in a 
uniform and genial clime. In the different provinces of Ger- 
many, where the vine is most fruitful, there are made annually 
from six to eight millions of quintals* and in the different pro- 
vinces of Prussia from fifty to sixty thousand acres covered 
with vineyards. From these are produced between one and 
two millions of quintals of wine, yet Prussia consumes more 
than a hundred thousand quintals of foreign wines 1 

Bavaria is the most fruitful in vines, and with her whole ter- 
ritory of nearly 30,000,000 of acres, 120,^00 are covered with 



* Each quintal 100 pounds. 
9* 



202 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

vineyards, and from these are realized 3,000,000 of quintals, 
and yet this is not enough for the people. They import from 
France annually 20,000 quintals, and the six largest wine-pro- 
ducing provinces buy annually of France from two to three 
millions of dollars worth of wines. 

At a congress held at Mayence, by the representatives of 
fruit-growers, some years since, there were found to be eighty- 
seven kinds of vines, or those bearing different names, and an 
effort was made to classify and simplify them, as often there was 
no difference in the vines, but they bore the names of the differ- 
ent cantons or districts where they grew. From all the hills 
and valleys of Germany, there were represented fifteen hundred 
kinds of fruit. These meetings are something like the agricul- 
tural fairs of America, but attended more by scientific men, 
who only know the theories, and have little or no practical 
knowledge of what they discuss. Yet they are very useful, 
and have in the course of half a century accomplished much 
good. As we have said before, there is nothing like German 
and Flemish agriculture. It was the result of a congress, and 
the facts ascertained and reported by a committee, concerning 
the most profitable agricultures, that Belgium came to devote 
one thirty-sixth of her territory to flax, and realizes year after 
year, seven millions of dollars from the flax she produces in 
cloth alone. There are in this little kingdom two. hundred and 
eighty thousand three hundred and ninety-six spinners, who 
produce annually two and a half millions of pounds of thread, 
and gain no more than twenty cents a day, — not so much 
since the introduction of machinery, and especially the great 
efforts of England to monopolize the linen manufacture. Yet 
this is said to be the most profitable of all agricultural interests, 
and far more so than the wine culture. 



CULTURE OF WINE AND SILK. 203 

The political and social economist, whom we have often 
quoted, says the people in wine and silk manufacturing districts 
are always the poorest, least intelligent, and most miser- 
able of all. The results are more uncertain, and depend on 
other things than care and industry. The whole process of 
making wine and silk is more manufacturing than agricultural, 
and a lad year, which they cannot foresee, and for which 
they can make no provision, deprives them of all their earn- 
ings. 

In silk culture, the tending of the mulberry trees, and 
gathering the leaves, is all that is argicultural, and this occu- 
pies but little time. They must earn enough in a few weeks 
of labor to support them a year, and the price they are paid 
for this labor must vary with the profits of the manufacturer, 
which depend on all the fluctuating causes in the commercial 
world. It is difficult to obtain land for other branches of hus- 
bandry in silk-growing districts, and it comes not within the 
means of the poor. The buildings, and all the preparations 
for the breeding and care of the worms and storing; the 
cocoons, are on a large scale, like those of the manufacture of 
cotton and woolen ; and the face of the country, the dwellings 
and the inhabitants, have none of the comfortable appearance 
of those where cereals and forage employ the people. 

It is very much the same with the vineyards. There are 
seasons of failure, and those who depend entirely upon the cul- 
ture, and the wages they obtain fcr pressing, transporting, 
supplying casks, etc., are, in a lad year, without employment, 
and in a wine-growing district have no other resource. In a 
good year there is a great demand for labor, and unusual pros- 
perity, but the next may reduce them to starvation. A little 
patch of ground devoted to corn, potatoes, and vegetables will 



204 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

be sure to produce something on which a family may depend ; 
but vineyards must be owned by large proprietors, who can 
afford to lose now and then a year's harvest, and the laborers 
have only the dependence of wages for their toil, and when 
these fail, have nothing. 

Perhaps this may console those who are lamenting that 
America is not a wine-growing country. For wine and silk we 
must pay dear, but this is better than to see half the countiy 
covered with mulberry-trees and vines, and a great multitude 
starving in their midst. Yet very beautiful are these hills 
and valleys over which the vine goes creeping, creeping ; and 
not only vineyards, but orchards and meadows, rich with the 
waving harvests, greet the eye on many a slope and in many 
a vale, where for centuries the patient toil of industrious thou- 
sands has contributed to their treasures. As vines are mostly 
planted on sunny hillsides, there is, of course, a variety and 
picturesque beauty all its own in the region where they grow, 
and the borders of the Rhine are the most celebrated for what 
both nature and art have bestowed upon them. 

The Rhine Gau is called the " Paradise of Germany * and is 
formed by a freak of the river, which, as it arrives under the 
walls of Mayence, turns suddenly to the left, and from a 
northerly takes a westerly course, as far as the little town of 
Bingen, where it is impeded by a range of the Taurus moun- 
tains, and slowly winds round again to the north, forming 
between Mayence and Ooblentz a perfect semicircle, when it 
again flows straight on to the north. Within this little iu- 
closure, sheltered by the mountains from the cold winds, are 
fields and vineyards, and gardens, teeming with a richuess and 
beauty more like those under Italian skies, and stretching away 
in the most luxuriant verdure, as far as the eye can reach, dot- 



THE RHINE GAU. 205 

ted with villages, farmhouses, and humbler cots, while along 
the river range the remnants of old feudal walls, churches, 
castles, convents and abbeys, teeming with the legendary lore 
of eighteen centuries. 

Among them all, the most celebrated is the castle of Jo- 
hannisberg, which is situated on an eminence nearly in the 
centre of this garden of beauty, and bears the. name of the 
" Throne of Bacchus," and the Rhine Gau is sometimes called 
the Paradise of the same jolly god. 

The palace has seen all the various fortunes of the wars and 
devastations, flood and fire of the last eight centuries, some- 
times occupied as a convent, and sometimes as a stronghold for 
a besieged army, till, in 1816, it became the possession of 
Prince Metternich, being given him by the allies, as a reward 
for his diplomatic services during the campaigns of Xapoleon. 
The vineyards which surround it cover sixty-three acres, and 
directly under the balcony of the castle, are the two or three 
acres which produce the best wine, which sells for two dollars 
a bottle on the spot. It is said not to commence fermentation 
until the end of a year, while other wines ferment at the end 
of three and six months. The grapes of these few vines are so 
precious that those that fall are carefully picked up with a fork, 
and the vintage is some two weeks later than in other districts. 

To mention all, or the most famous vineyards that radiate 
from this, would be to extend our list beyond the capacity of 
our pages, and to depart too widely from our purpose. Within 
the limits of the Rhine Gau, and without, far away in every di- 
rection, castled-crowned hills, valleys and vineyards extend in 
endless succession. Near by is the Strahlenberg, and at its feet 
the little village of Hattenheim, still surrounded by forests and 
impregnable fastnesses, for there dwelt the lords of Scharfestein, 



206 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

who for centuries were the terror of the haughty bishops of 
Mayence. But it is long now since the revelry of kith or kin 
of theirs has been heard within the walls. The wine of its 
vineyards is not so famous as those of Steinberg, which be- 
longed to the monastry of Eberbach, which also stood upon 
the skirt of the forest. But the good fathers who dwelt there 
did not spread abroad the fame of their vineyards, and not till 
they became the possession of the Duke of Nassau, did they 
come into rivalship with those of Johannisberg, " for," said 
the holy men, " it must not be permitted to touch lips pro- 
fane !" That humanity and civilization have made some pro- 
gress since their day, is evident from the use to which their fat 
livings have come. The abbey has been converted into a hos- 
pital for idiots, and the broad acres which supported volup- 
tuous idlers, have a holier mission in ameliorating the condi- 
tion of the unfortunate. 

From Eberbach we pass through a valley rich with every- 
thing that nature strews with munificent hand — the hills have 
an emerald crown, such as can only be woven of the leaves of the 
" grand old oak f the fields are variegated with the peculiar 
culture of German husbandry, the meadows are green with the 
waving grass, and the forests are carpeted with a bright, flow- 
ering moss. Then come the mountain of Rauenthal, from 
whose summit we may look abroad upon a landscape which has 
few rivals in any clime — the Rhine Gau, with the vines binding 
it like a silver ribbon ; Mayence, with its lofty towers, far to 
the left; Darmstadt and Frankfort, and, faintly in the distance, 
the castle-crowned peaks of the Odenwald ; and still on, the 
plains of the palatinate and Rhenish Bavaria. It is like a 
picture, from which one is afraid to turn his eye, lest it vanish 
as in a dream. 



WINKLE AND WINE CELLARS. 207 

When we descend, from village to village, we are still in 
vineyards, some of which we have already mentioned. The 
cellars of Winkle were grand wine deposits of the Romans, 
and received the name of Vinci cella, and the streets still bear 
Roman names. Though a stranger, you will everywhere be 
greeted by the peasantry as you pass, who, if near, will say, 
" Good morning " or "good evening," and if far off, will doff 
their hats, and if you wear one, expect you to doff yours in 
return. As they work, and sing, and laugh, they will seem to 
you a happy people, and in the midst of such abundance it will 
be difficult to conceive that want or misery can have among 
them a home. 

It was here that we accidentally met a young peasant girl, 
who afterwards became our companion in many weeks of travel. 
We entered a house* to ask for a glass of water, which was 
handed us by her ; and finding we did not speak her language, 
she spoke ours, which led to her saying she had been two years 
in America at school. It would be so strange a thing for a 
peasant girl to educate herself in Germany, that she could not 
endure the reproaches it would bring upon her, and so went 
two or three thousand miles at so much expense, to obtain 
that for which American children are sent to Germany. It was 
an adventure to awaken our interest, and proved at least that 
there was mind and energy in a class of people who have the 
credit of being without ambition or capacity. 

According to our custom, we asked the privilege of looking 
about the premises ; and as we crossed the threshold, she 
exclaimed : " Oh dear, how is it possible an American lady can 
endure these horrid German ways." We were quite astonished 
at hearing a remark from one who had been born and bred 
among these same ways, such as we should never have dared tc 



208 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

make ourselves. Her words referred to things to which we 
have made allusion, proving, however fine the public buildings 
and galleries of art, there will be found in the homes no 
arrangements for comfort, and a barrenness which is heartsick- 
ening to one who has for a little time enjoyed the luxury of the 
most humble American fireside. We suppose there has been, 
indeed, very little change in the mode of life among the people 
since Charlemagne and his lordly retainers reveled in yoD 
castle, and demanded for their wars and their feasts all that 
the land could produce. 

At Bingen we are reminded of the song which the Hutchin- 
sons sing, and which has drawn tears from our eyes : " Bingen 
on the Rhine." Well may we credit any story of love and 
romance that the poet may locate in so picturesque a spot. 

On the summit of a hill in Hochheiei are eight acres of 
vineyard, or 4,100 feet, where each foot of the land is valued 
at a ducat ! The whole is exposed all day to the sun, and well 
guarded from the wind, while a little brook runs near to water 
it when the rains of heaven fail, and when they are too 
abundant, wooden aqueducts carry off the surplus, and thus 
leave it always in the right condition for the utmost fruitf ill- 
ness. 

It was the Rhine Grau that was the scene of the ravages and 
devastations of the " Servile war." The castles and vineyards 
were owned by proud oppressors, and there came a limit to the 
endurance of the oppressed. They had nothing to lose, and 
little hope of gain ; but revenge burned in their hearts, and 
they thought only to punish their tyrants. Historians speak of 
them as exhibiting in this way their zeal for the new religion, and 
the leaders of the Reformation are blamed for the excesses of a 
lawless mob. But, as in the horrors of the French revolution, 



SERVILE WAR. 209 

historians ascribe effects to wrong causes. The murders and 
atrocities of revolutionists are crowded into a small space, but 
the blood spilt during the reign of terror would not equal that 
which was shed during the long and not less terrible reign of 
a succession of Bourbon princes ; and the victims who wasted 
in dungeons at the command of uncrowned tyrants would not 
number so many as kings and their heartless favorites had 
doomed to torture and starvation to gratify caprice and a love 
of revenge. 

" Who may not succeed by appealing to the passions of an 
ignorant, vulgar rabble," asks a grave chronicler ; but he does 
not stop to ask, how came they to be an " ignorant, vulgar 
rabble," and how came they to think it would be doing good 
service, to rid the earth of those who ruled over them ? It is 
more wonder that they endured so long. We have no lamen- 
tations to make over Bourbon princes, or the dethronement of 
these haughty bishops, and proud barons whose empire was in 
the beautiful valley of the Rhine. The peasants of the servile 
war gained nothing, and not till two centuries later were kings 
so far humbled and made to tremble, that they would listen to 
the prayers of the people. Republican armies seemed a terri- 
ble curse while they were marching through the land, but they 
sowed the seeds of civilization and human rights, which have 
sprung up wherever they trod ; though so oft must they be 
crushed by the feet of princes, that they are slow in bearing 
fruit. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE PALATINATE rttss -'INTAGE ST. WERNER THE JEWS NU- 
REMBERG — tflNE DRINKING GRAPE-CURE. 

Below the Rhine Gau lies the Pfalzgraf, or Palatinate, 
which is only a little less famous for its vineyards, and scarcely 
less beautiful in its general features. It is also famous for one 
thing more — its sausages ! and the villages scattered among 
the Haart Mountains, hold every year, on the first of Septem- 
ber, a sausage fair. The varieties of this favorite German dish 
we have never been able to number. At Bremen, on the 
Weser, you have in the winter, as the greatest delicacy, Braun- 
kohl and Pinkel, which, translated, is cabbage and sausage ; 
though each is of a peculiar kind, and quite indescribable, yet 
we confess, not the less excellent. The brown kohl is, before it is 
cooked, a curly-leafed, dark green and purple species of 
cabbage, in small heads, and the sausage is very large and 
looks like some kind of seeds mixed with fat ; but it is the 
grits, or grots, of rye or oatmeal componded in a peculiar 
way with meat. They are fried for eating, and the cabbage 
is boiled till it is all soft and makes a kind of mush. All the 
way from the northernmost to the southernmost limit, we shall 
find this staple commodity and table-standby in every variety 
of form and color, and all the kinds and degrees of excellence 
into which it can be moulded. 
210 



LEGEND OF ST. WERNER. 211 

Gathered together at this sausage fair, are the peasantry 
from all the cantons of the Palatinate, arrayed in all the glory 
of their holiday costumes, and holiday spirits ; and the taste 
they display upon themselves and their wares makes both 
quite irresistible. At night, beneath the canopy which shelters 
this unpoetical market place, is held a grand ball, and rustic 
feet keep time to rustic music till 

" Daylight ushers in the morn." 

From Mayence to Worms, it is one continuous garden, and in 
this famous city is the most famous wine of all. The vineyard 
around the Liebfrauenkirche, produces a nectar which is labeled, 
when it is sent forth, and known everywhere as the Liebfraucn- 
milch — milk of the Holy Virgin. 

In Rhenish Prussia, we find Bacharach the most renowned 
for its vineyards, and so long ago as in the twelfth century, the 
then flourishing city of Nuremberg, paid the price of its free- 
dom with four tuns of this wine, to the emperor, and Pope 
Pius II. obtained every year several tuns to be drunk on grand 
occasions. But its cellars were also the deposit of great quan- 
tities from the Rhine Gau, with which it must share its honors. 
Both have been celebrated in rhyme : 

" At Hochheim oh the Main, 
At Wurzburg on the Stein, 
At Bacharach on the Rhine, 
There grows the best wine." 

Here are the ruins of the grand old castle of Stahbeck, once 
occupied by the Princes Palatine, and here we see everywhere 
the image of St. Werner, the legend of which has been handed 
down for centuries, and is related as follows : In 1287, the 



212 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

father of the sainted boy lived in Bacharach, and was a very 
godly man, whose devout life offended an old woman who was 
his neighbor, and who was probably more offended that he did 
not allow his family to associate with her. In revenge she stole 
his little son, and sold him to some Jews, who she knew would 
be glad of any victim upon whom to requite the tortures they 
were everywhere receiving from Christian people. 

In the vaults of a large house near by the river, they held 
their annual feast, at midnight, to be in less danger of dis- 
covery. The little boy was placed in their midst, and to the 
inquiry, what shall be done with him ? many voices cry out : 

" Crucify him ! crucify him 1" 

" So let it be," said the old man, who stood among them as 
high priest and judge. 

Immediately a black curtain rose, and exposed a cross with 
many implements of torture. It fell again a few moments, and 
when it was raised the next time, the little boy was nailed to 
the cross, with his mouth gagged to stifle his screams, while 
slowly one by one every vein in his little body was opened, and 
every ingenious torture inflicted that could increase his anguish. 
When death put an end to his suffering, the body was secured 
in a sack filled with stones, and thrown into the middle of the 
Rhine. But instead of sinking, it floated upon the surface, and 
the next morning a fisherman saw a little white hand stretched 
out as if imploring aid. He immediately communicated the 
intelligence, and soon the river was covered with boats pursu- 
ing the object, which could not be distinctly recognized, and 
which, to their surprise, they saw floating up the stream. They 
followed it till it stopped near where the old woman lived, 
approached the bank, and by a sudden rising of the river, 
was thrown at her feet, as she came with the crowd to learn 



THE JEWS NUREMBERG. 213 

the cause of the excitement. The hand pointed to her, and 
need it be said that all believed it to be the finger of provi- 
dence pointing out the guilty. She was arrested, confessed her 
guilt, and was executed. Every Jew in the place was also 
apprehended, and as the body of the boy was laid out in the 
church, every one was compelled to come and place his hand 
upon it, and tortures applied to make him confess his guilt. 
Wonderful to relate, the veins bled afresh at the touch of the 
murderers, yet only one could be brought to confession. But 
this did not save those whom God had evidently doomed to 
destruction, and all who participated in the guilty deed were 
hanged, and the rest banished. 

The child was canonized, and a church built to commem- 
orate the event ; and St. Werner receives the homage of all 
devout Catholics who pass this way. 

If we could listen to the legends of the Jews, what an array 
of guilt would appear against Christians ; but we do not need 
traditions to tell us they have been punished for their monstrous 
crimes towards this outcast people. In how many cities was 
their persecution and banishment the death-blow to all industry 
and commercial prosperity. Yet there are places still where they 
are not allowed to set foot. In some cities, one or two streets 
are permitted them, which of course are crowded to suffocation. 
In this year (1858), Frankfort, for the first time, bestows 
upon them some of the privileges of citizens, and Bremen has 
allowed them only within a short time to live and breathe with- 
in her walls. 

It was with the expulsion of the Jews, that the decay of 
Nuremberg commenced. To gratify the narrow prejudice of 
the trades and guilds with whom they were supposed to inter- 
fere, they were driven forth and forbidden to sleep within the 



214 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

gates. The same stupid prejudice repulsed the Protestant 
weavers, who came as exiles from France and Flanders, and 
when Protestantism was in the ascendant, 40 Romanist could 
become a citizen and own property under its protection. So 
it has been reduced from the most wealthy and influential of the 
ancient free imperial cities, to the most unimportant of provincial 
towns. Though its freedom was purchased with the wine of 
Bacharach, it was not the less freedom, and Nuremberg has 
been called the cradle of German liberty. Here resided the 
emperors, and sat the imperial diets. In the seventeenth 
century her trade extended over Europe and Asia, and the 
most useful inventions and important manufactures owe 
their birth to her enterprising citizens, so that it became a 

proverb — 

" Nuremberg's hand 
Goes through every land." 

But now there is no trace of her former grandeur except in 
ruins of proud castles and fortifications, which tell a sadder 
story of decaying energy and spirit, than of walls and monu- 
ments. She is now the great toy mart of the world, which may 
indeed not be so insignificant an honor as at first seems, inas- 
much, as the amusement of children is not the least important 
among human occupations. But it might well be shared with 
others among a great people. 

In one place, where the Rhine flows through a wine-growing 
district, there is a large stone in the middle of the river, which 
the peasants tell us has the marvelous benevolence to indicate 
when there will be an abundant harvest. But, as in most other 
superstitions, the philosopher can find a natural cause for what 
seems miraculous to the ignorant. The stone appears only in 
a dry season, when of course the river is low, and a season just 



THE VINTAGE. 215 

dry enough to lower the water to the point of exhibiting the 
stone is most favorable to the fruitfulness of vines. But to the 
credulous inhabitants of these borders, it would be quite use- 
less to explain away a supernatural intervention. Unbelief is 
not among their sins, and like the Indian and the Norwegian, 
the amusement of their long winter evenings is to tell the tales 
which have been handed down from father to son, from century 
to century, of the signs and wonders, and miracles, which have 
been done in their midst. 

In most places, the vintage commences about the 12th of 
October, and in the districts where it ripens about the same 
time the day for commencing is designated by government, as 
on that day the watch must cease. The announcement is made 
by the ringing of bells a week previous, accompanied by a for- 
mal notice from the police. The evening previous, the bells are 
again rung, and early in the morning they give out a merrier 
peal at the hour the vintagers are to commence, and soon they 
may be seen issuing forth, not in their best, yet in holiday cos- 
tume, singing as they go, with baskets upon their heads and in 
their hands, till the streets are thronged, and the hill-sides and 
valleys covered with troops of happy people, whose hearts one 
would not think had ever been burdened by care or sorrow. And 
this is a sight upon which eighteen centuries have looked, and 
the only one, perhaps, which has not varied through all the 
changing dynasties, from the bright autumn days when Caesar 
sat in his palace at Spire, and contemplated it ; through all the 
years of devastation by barbarian hordes — in the dark ages, 
when bishops, and monks, and priests exercised a stern rule, yet 
milder and better than that of those savage chiefs, inasmuch, 
as it substituted for brute force the curbing of the spirit ; dur- 
ing the dawning of still brighter days, when Charlemagne 



216 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

brought order out of confusion, and erected a still higher 
standard of law and honor ; through the mysteries of the 
Vehmgericht, or Secret Tribunal, which filled the land with 
terror, and made the dungeons of a hundred cities echo with 
the groans of innocent and guilty victims — until the Reforma- 
tion stirred all the nations up to strife, and for a century de- 
luged a whole continent with blood ; and popes, and princes, 
and people, learning to respect the opinions of each other, a 
peace for once filled the earth which did not every moment fear 
the fierce war-whoop and the tramp of armies. 

Whether Roman or Gallic legions reveled in yon castle-halls 
— whether pope, or prince, or prelate, waved the sceptre from 
its proud turrets — whether imperial or republican armies 
marched through the land, the vineyards lay ever smiling and 
peaceful upon the hill-sides, and the mountains echoed the laugh 
of happy vintagers, for the time indifferent alike to the fortunes 
of friend or foe. 

Bread and wine were the food upon which all depended, and 
though palaces were demolished, and cities and villages destroyed, 
the harvest must remain untouched, for when it failed, famine 
and pestilence overtook the victor and vanquished, and made more 
fearful havoc than the sword. We are, therefore, looking upon 
a sight which has varied little through all these changing times, 
and the mode of gathering the purple clusters must be nea,rly 
the same as when the daughters of Judea were admitted among 
the grapes and pomegranates on Canaan's shore. Here, as 
there, a stone or tree alone marks the divisions between the 
possessions of different individuals, and each knows his own 
little field with an instinct like that of the shepherd, who can 
call his sheep by name. 

From the summit of the highest peak to the bottom of the 



THE WINE PRESS. 217 

lowest valley, they echo back their songs, and coming and going 
all the day are the files with their well filled baskets, which 
are in some cases deposited in large vats in the fields, and in 
others in these prosy times, carried to barns or granaries to un- 
dergo the process of pressing in mills like those in which apples 
are ground, and often the same are used for both purposes. 
But this destroys half the poetry of the scene, so we shall con- 
fine ourselves to the more primitive modes. 

When the principal harvest is gathered, it is the custom io 
invite friends to glean what remains, but any one may partake 
in the toils and pleasures of the vintage who will labor for the 
privilege of eating as many as he wants during the day ; and 
there are few, we imagine, who would not be willing to stoop to 
such labor for such a reward! 

In old times it was the universal custom to tread the grapes 
upon the spot, and this is still practised in many provinces, and 
this we saw with our eyes. Into a large flat tub they are poured 
after being stripped from the stems ; and naked feet, which have 
been washed in the clear stream which gurgles through the 
valley, commence the tramping, and over them the rich juice, 
in anything but limpid streams, is seen to flow ! What a dese- 
cration it seems of things beautiful, if not divine. And not at 
all would any one be tempted to tarry long at such wine ; and 
not at all does it look as if one would ever be in any danger of 
looking at it long though it is indeed red. 

Sometimes the grapes are pressed by pounding them in small 
troughs by an instrument exactly like that which washerwomen 
use, and in all cases, when it is extracted, it must stand for 
some time to settle, and is then poured into the tuns, hogs- 
heads and barrels, which have been cleaned and made ready as 
they were wont to be in New England for cider. But not 

10 



218 PEASANT LIFE m GERMANY. 

like cider is the wine, most pleasant and innocent when it is 
new. How little some lecturers upon temperence know what 
they say when they talk of fermented and unfermented liquors. 
It is strange indeed that grapes should be so delicious and 
beautiful in the clusters, and the juice only a few days ex- 
pressed so disagreeable and deleterious. Not until after it has 
fermented is it possible to drink it ; but, judging from our expe- 
rience with apple juice, and the testimony of those who know 
nothing about the matter, we took a very generous swallow of 
new wine, and being about to repeat it, a friend exclaimed, 
" What are you doing V 

" Why, drinking new wine to be sure, why not V 

" You will learn if you try it. Do you not know that half a 
glass will make you so dizzy that you cannot walk ?" 

"To be sure not ; how should I know, never having seen any 
new wine before ? but I have always supposed that it was harm- 
less before it was fermented." 

" After it is fermented you may drink as much as you please, 
and the older it is the milder and less hurtful you will find 
it." 

But having tasted, we did not care to repeat the experiment ; 
already our eyes were dim ; and besides, it is far from beiug 
palatable, having a strong bitter taste, like some kind of her,b- 
drink. When the tuns are filled, they are placed in the cellars, 
and not for six months or a year does one think of opening 
them. Each tun is labeled with the vineyard and date of its 
contents, and the longer it can remain untouched the more val- 
uable it becomes. 

It used to be the custom to dance upon the butts when they 
were filled, and quite a cotillion could be formed upon one, such 
as filled the vaults of old castles ; and now one is usually taken 



WINE DRINKING GRAPE CURE. 219 

to the field, and when it is- filled, is wreathed with vines, and a 
blooming maiden, converted for the time into a naiad by a 
crown of garlands and a dress of leaves, sits npon it and sings 
whilst the others sing and dance around her. "When the vin- 
tage is over, a ball is celebrated in every village, and enough 
very old and very good wine is drunk to send them reeling home. 

To one who has been accustomed to see this precious fruit of 
the vineyard only at the tables of the rich and on rare occa- 
sions, it is almost painful to look upon the reckless manner with 
which it is wasted in every inn, and on every table, even among 
the poor. In the regions where it is produced, it is to be had 
everywhere for eight cents a pint, and in the village inns the 
.peasantry are to be seen at all hours sitting at the long 
wooden tables with quart and two-quart bottles, and pint and 
half-pint tumblers before them, a junk of black bread in the 
hand and a pipe in the mouth, drinking and smoking, eating 
and talking, as if these were the only business of life. But 
famous as they are, we do not like the Rhenish wines, they are 
not so pleasant and delicate as the French, and indeed many 
of them we could not distinguish from New England cider — 
they are certainly not a whit better. 

In a description of the vintage we must not omit the grape- 
cure, which is a grand remedy for all manner of diseases, and 
does sometimes perform marvelous cures. People go to spend 
the vintage season where they can procure grapes in abundance, 
and eat many pounds a day as long as they last. The blood is 
said to be thus wholly renewed and purified, and surely no 
physician could prescribe a more agreeable remedy, and one 
which we should think would almost tempt people to be sick. 

The grape-seeds and sticks which have been pressed are 
dried, being first cut into oblong squares, about the size and 



220 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

form of bricks, to be used for fuel. We have seen thousands 
lying upon slats arranged one above another in sheds built for 
the purpose, and when ready they are piled away and sold 
for so much a hundred, at a price which makes them about a 
cent a-piece. Turf is cut in the same form, and acres and hun- 
dreds of acres of heath supply hundreds and thousands of fam- 
ilies with all the material they have for fire during the long 
winter. The leaves, too, are all raked up in the forests, and 
every stick by the way-side is carefully garnered by the women 
and children, who may be seen all summer, when there is no 
more imperative labor, with their sickles, their rakes and their 
baskets, upon every hill and in every valley, gleaning and trans- 
porting what in America is left for time to destroy, but what in 
Germany is life to millions. 

We lingered until a November snow covered all the hills, and 
there was no longer trace of life or beauty, where we had traced 
the progress of the tiniest spire of grass and the first bursting 
bud and leaf through all the gradations, from fresh opening 
life through maturity and perfection to decay and death. But 
where shall we find words to tell of the happy memories which 
we bring away, and which will be to us a well-spring of joy 
through all our pilgrimage in whatever lands we rove. We have 
seen many happy homes, and hearts and minds, on which 
nobility was stamped with nature's impress, and had we been 
admitted as familiarly to the palaces of this fair land, are sure 
we should not have found the sterling excellence that has glad- 
dened us in a hundred peasant cots. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE ODENWALD CHURCHES FUNERALS BALLS SMOKING 

DRINKING WANT OF POLITENESS IMMORALITY MARRIAGE AND 

BETROTHALS. 

Not less famous than the valley of the Rhine are the moun- 
tain's and forests of the Odenwald. Here feudalism had her 
strongest fortresses, and here her institutions took firmest root. 
Here are scattered more thickly ruins, that tell of the days of 
old, and every valley and hill-side teem with traditions which 
mark the footsteps of centuries. Every conqueror from Caesar 
to Bonaparte has marched through its valleys, and the walls of 
these proud castles have echoed to the revelry and execrations 
of a hundred armies, as success or misfortune induced them to 
flee to them for refuge and shelter. 

The high road from Darmstadt to Heidelberg is called the 
Bergstrasse, or Mountain-road, as it lies all the way at the foot 
of these castle-crowned peaks, which present a succession of 
undulating hills and lofty mountains, once dark with the dense, 
impenetrable forests, but now covered with vineyards, or varie- 
gated with the garden husbandry which we have often de- 
scribed. The mountains are on the left as we journey south- 
ward, and on the right stretch far away the fertile plains, rich 
with the golden harvests. It was on a summer morning, just 
after a gentle shower, that we first beheld them, and like a 

241 



22b PEASANT LIFE EST GERMANY. 

vision of fairy land or some dream in Eastern fable, they came 
upon our view. It is here that an Italian is said to have ex- 
claimed : " Oh ! Germany, Germany, how much more beautiful 
art thou than Italy !" and surely there can be nothing more 
beautiful in that sunny land. It was here that we first noticed 
the difference between German and American agriculture, and 
began to wonder how such results could be produced. It 
seemed to us the earth must groan with its abundance, and not 
only every hill and valley, but every rock, was made to bring 
forth fruit. In the fields of grain the stems stand so thickly, 
that the same extent of soil must bear two or three times the 
quantity we had ever seen before, and it was the same .with 
rows of vegetables, with beans and peas, and turnips — with 
everything that was good for food for man or beast — the soil 
never seemed to complain of exhaustion. 

The Bergstrasse is said to have been made by the Romans, 
and to have borne the name of Via Strata, meaning a way con- 
structed by art, and everywhere are found the relics of the 
mighty legions who camped in the forests where now have 
sprung up villages, smile the vineyards or wave the harvests of 
the honest peasantry, who toil still to feed armies that live in 
idleness upon the fruits of their industry. 

It was in one of the brightest of the sunny nooks which 
nestle among all these mountain passes, that we took up our 
abode, and from which we made excursions to observe rural 
life in the Odenwald. 

Many writers have affirmed that no traces of the famous god 
of the Scandinavians are to be found in southern and interior 
Germany, but they had not lived among the people, and listened 
to the traditions that have come down through centuries, of 
the days when their fathers worshipped idols, and smiled at tho 



ODEMWALD CHUKCHES. 223 

superstitions which still remain, that could have originated 
among no other than an idolatrous people. 

The name Odenwald is believed by those best versed in eth- 
nology to be derived from Odin, though some perceive in it a 
derivation from the word Ode, meaning wild, and others from 
Od — Jupiter, the god of the Romans, and others from Otto ; but 
there is mention of the name before there was an- emperor of 
Germany, and he must, therefore, resign this honor. Others 
would ascribe it to the expression, O du Wald — Oh, thou 
forest; but there can be little doubt that the whole forest 
was once consecrated to the deity, whose altars may be traced 
in all these northern climes, and the ashes of which are not yet 
entirely swept away. The nominal religion is Catholic, the 
ceremonies of which are practised with a simplicity and single- 
heartedness that command our respect, and -in all southern 
Germany the priesthood exhibit very little of the pomp and 
parade which we have been taught to expect as the universal 
accompaniments of their order. If they are endowed with 
riches, they must be expended on something besides personal 
comfort and luxury, or in the architecture and decoration of 
their churches. These are simple in the extreme, except in a 
few instances, where they indulge in stained windows and an 
expensive organ. The floors and seats are always bare, and 
the doors always open, as the Catholic church is the place 
of prayer at all hours of the day and week, as well as on 
Sunday. Service is held every morning at early dawn, and 
whoever wishes the quiet of an hour alone with his God, can 
enter, and be sure no profane intruder will interrupt his devo- 
tions. This seems to us a very proper use of a church, and 
more in accordance with one's ideas of the worship of an ever- 
present Deity, by daily and hourly dependent creatures, than 



224 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

to keep his house shut, except on Sundays, and then in so luxu- 
rious a condition that only satin slippers can feel quite at home 
upon its velvet carpets. 

Funerals in Germany are almost universally in the morning, 
and sometimes ere it is scarcely light. We have often during 
an early walk met the sable train, and can always tell the 
rank of the deceased by the equipage and appointments. 
Among the Catholics there is a service at the house of mourn- 
ing and at the grave, the same as in America ; but among 
Protestants there is often none — not even a clergyman present. 
The friends and those who are to bear away the coffin assemble 
at the time designated by the family, and if others not invited 
wish to pay their respects, they wait in neighboring houses or 
in the street, till the procession moves, and follow to the grave. 
The pall-bearers are appointed by the state, but paid by the 
family, and are of three ranks. The first attend upon the fune- 
rals of persons of distinction, and may also attend on any occa- 
sion, if those who employ them are willing to pay the price, 
which is double that required for those of the second rauk. 
Much of the pomp and state of such occasions is passing away. 
Formerly a sort of arch was raised over the hearse, and hung 
with black, and from the top drooped long sable plumes, while 
four or six horses drew the carriage, also covered with black 
cloth, hanging to the earth, and with plumes upon their heads. 
But even dignitaries are not often seen in these days attended 
by so much pomp. Officers of state must employ the first rank 
of pall-bearers, who wear long black cloaks, and ride in car- 
riages, with equipage to denote their rank, but others may do 
as they please. 

In Hamburg the friends do not accompany the corpse to the 
grave ; but sixteen hired mourners attend, who are dressed in 



FUNERALS — BURYING GROUNDS. 225 

black, with plaited ruffs round their necks, curled and powdered 
wigs, short Spanish cloaks and swords. But now only the rich, 
and those who wish to make a display, are seen in this style, as 
it is expensive as well as ridiculous. Among the Catholics we 
have often seen six, eight, and ten clergymen, some in white 
robes and some in black, preceding the hearse, on foot, and 
several young girls walking behind, with flowers and wreaths 
which they strew upon the grave. In the churchyards, all 
summer the monuments are hung with wreaths, which friends 
place there, and women making them and offering them for 
sale are sitting by the gate. When it becomes too cold for natu- 
ral flowers, artificial ones supply their place. The cities of the 
dead are thus made pleasant ; but we have seen no cemetery 
that compared in beauty of position and charms of natural 
scenery with Mount Auburn or Greeenwood. The one at 
Frankfort is said to be more beautiful than Pere la Chaise. 
Yet it exhibits only a level surface, and very little variety in 
the arrangements. All that is executed upon marble of course 
surpasses infinitely anything to be found in the New World ; 
and much more money, time and labor are expended by the 
state and by individuals, in adorning and rendering attractive 
this and every resort of the people. 

In the country burial grounds there is one portion allotted 
to the aged and married, another to the youth, and another to 
the children. Hideous looking images of the Saviour, the Virgin 
and Saints, are erected at every corner, and also along the 
streets, which would be sufficient to disgust one with the thought 
of ever seeing them, if we really believed in the resemblance ; 
but the people look at them with spiritual eyes, and cross them- 
selves reverentially whenever they pass, though laden with 
boxes and bundles, and in the midst of the most uproarious 

10* 



226 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

mirth. It is only in Protestant districts that infidelity prevails 
The Catholics here are not less devout than they were before 
Luther and Calvin awoke, and they do -not seem to be in any 
danger of renouncing their faith. 

The festivals connected with the church are a pleasing fea- 
ture in peasant life, and a distinctive characteristic of the Catho- 
lic provinces. One we often heard called the " feast of conse- 
cration/' though we could never learn exactly what it meant. 
It could not mean the consecration of the individual churches, 
as the celebrations occur all in the autumn, and therefore must 
have reference to something in common with all, and may reach 
back to the primitive ages and the promulgation of Christi- 
anity. We heard one day, from our room, the singing of many 
voices in the street, and on looking out saw a long procession, 
stretching as far as the eye could see, of men, and women, and 
children, bearing flags, and dressed in holiday costume, with 
books in their hands, from which they were singing loud and 
clear the hymns for the occasion, and wending their way to a 
chapel upon a high hill, where service was performed by the 
bishop, who travels a circuit to be present in each village at 
this festive season. 

The men were upon one side of the street and the women 
upon the other, and it must be at least two miles that they walk 
to the chapel, besides passing through the principal streets, sing- 
ing ever as they go. Everything in Germany begins and ends 
with a dance, and the church celebrations are not an exception. 
Every village inn has its ball-room, the best finished and most 
pleasant room in the house ; but the ball itself strikes us as 
the most repulsive of any feature of peasant life. Very fre- 
quently they occur on Sundays also, and begin early in the 
afternoon, with two or three fiddlers for musicians. The smok- 



BALLS SMOKING DRINKING. 227 

ing and drinking commence at the same time, and in a few 
hours the room is dark with the clouds from the fragrant weed, 
the wine is stauding in dirty pools over all the floors and tables ; 
the men are stupiiied, and all are heated and reeking with per- 
spiration, presenting a most disgusting and heart-sickening 
scene, yet their feet never weary — they dance till night, and 
then till morning. 

But we have attended balls where the assembly consisted of 
merchants, officials, and respectable mechanics, and at which 
gentlemen of the highest rank were present as spectators, and 
the room was also filled with smoke to suffocation. The gen- 
tlemen walked about between the dances with cigars in their 
mouths, puffing without ceremony into the faces of the ladies, 
and spitting upon the floor, without a seeming thought that 
they were doing anything contrary to the most gentlemanly 
deportment, as indeed they are not as it is here understood. 
No German imagines tobacco smoke to be disagreeable on any 
occasion, and in the most refined circles, after tea the cigars 
are lighted, and the puffing kept up for hours, where the ladies 
are elegant, accomplished, and dressed in the most recherche 
style. If they walk in the garden it is the same, they smoke, 
smoke, smoke ; cigar lighters are placed upon the dining-table 
in hotels, and no where in Germany are there salons provided 
for ladies. There is no common room for the meeting of either 
gentlemen or ladies except the smoking-room ; and ladies in. 
hotels are not expected to linger after dinner, or spend the 
evening* where gentlemen can enjoy their society. We hear 
this often lamented among themselves, but it is the cus- 
tom, and there is no such thing as changing a German cus- 
tom. 

The reason Germans adhere to the halls and dances so tena 



228 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

ciously is, that it is the only way in which gentlemen and ladies 
are allowed to meet ; the ball-room is the only place, among 
high or low, where Cupid can lawfully practise his profession, 
or any kind of acquaintance be formed that may lead to love 
and matrimony. So the girls are longing continually for the 
balls. After having been invited many times to tea, and met 
no gentlemen, we asked, if they were never invited on such 
occasions. " No," was the answer ; " if we invite gentlemen 
a great heavy expensive supper must be provided, that is so 
much trouble, and costs so much that we do not like it. Be- 
sides, gentlemen do not wish to come, they had rather go to the 
club-room and drink and smoke f and when we saw the supper, 
which a lady thought it necessary to prepare, because three or 
four gentlemen were to be present, we did not wonder she did 
not care to do it often, and concluded they were more' trouble 
than comfort. 

A German lady had remarked, that she often received polite- 
ness from Englishmen and Frenchmen when she was traveling, 
but never from a German, unless his attentions degenerated into 
insulting gallantry. When we saw their mode of life, and how 
little gentlemen could associate with ladies in a pleasant and 
delicate way, we remarked : " It is not strange they are not 
polite, they have no opportunity of learning politeness. They 
are not taught to look upon women in the light of companions 
and helpmeets, but merely as the instruments of supplying 
their animal wants — of cooking them suppers." 

A lady playfully remarked concerning her little ditughter a 
year old, that she believed she would be an authoress, she was 
so fond of pen and paper, at which the husband and father was 
almost ready to annihilate her, for harboring an instant the 
thought, that his daughter could ever become a thing so 



MANNERS WANT OF POLITENESS. 229 

despicable ! Yet he was intelligent himself, rich, and traveled, 
but never thought it necessary for women to know any of 
these things. 

There is not so much maneuvering in Germany to get daugh- 
ters married. It is more fair play, and is better on the whole. 
A mamma makes no circumlocutions in asking young men to 
marry her daughters, and as soon as they are in business for 
themselves, they say they are regularly besieged. All this we 
take down from the lips of German ladies, for we should not 
venture such remarks upon our own limited observation. A 
gentleman who had lived sometime in New York, and become 
accustomed to meeting ladies in those pleasant conversational 
parties, or of calling on them freely to spend an hour in an 
intelligent and rational way, returns to find it terribly stupid 
to be confined entirely to the smoking-room, and to talk of 
business all the evening as w r ell as all day, or else not talk at all. 
11 Oh dear !" he exclaims, " I would like to run in and spend 
an evening with a family, it would so agreeably pass away the 
time, but then I do not wish to marry one of the daughters, 
and I could not call twice before the mamma would consider 
me bound to come to this result." 

But in the ball-room they are free. Each young lady must 
be accompanied by a matron, but when there they dance and 
talk with whom they please, and those who cannot walk in the 
street together, or see each other in their homes, without scan- 
dal, may stand with their arms around each others waists half 
the eveoiag. When not dancing, the gentleman keeps his arm 
around the lady with whom he has last waltzed, till it is time 
to commence again. These customs are the same among high 
aud low, with prince and peasant, in the castle and in the cot- 
tage. A young man of the peasant class tells me that there 



230 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

is no respect paid to women among them — they strike a woman 
just as quick as they would strike a man, and as we have seen, 
impose upon her double burdens. If under any circumstances 
favors are to be shown, the men receive them. 

The young girl whom we met in Winkle, and who became 
our traveling companion, told us many things we should scarcely 
dare repeat, and should not expect to be believed. But she 
said the reason of the immorality among young girls was, that 
they were kept under this restraint without being told the reason, 
and secluded from temptation without knowing why, and when 
obliged to go into the world to take care of themselves, they 
have no moral strength. She said, in one town, where she was 
in the spring, after her arrival from America, there was a con- 
firmation in her church, and three hundred girls were to be 
confirmed, who were from fourteen to sixteen years of age, and 
when the examination came only sixteen could be admitted to 
the church by this holy rite ; all the others were, at this early age, 
fallen women. We could scarcely believe our ears, and should 
not have credited the statement if we had received it from one 
who belonged to a different communion, but our informer was a 
member of the same church, and a most earnest defender of her 
faith. It was in the same village that we afterwards heard 
a bell ringing through the street. On looking out, we saw a 
man patrolling the town with this singular music, and she said 
it was the custom through all this province when a young girl 
had gone astray from rectitude, and had concealed her sin 
instead of confessing it to the priest as required, for "the police, 
as soon as they ascertained the truth, to take a bell in this way 
and ring it through the town, calling the name of the guilty one, 
and proclaiming her fall. One would think a woman needed 
no such herald to proclaim her shame, especially when no 



IMMORALITY BETROTHALS. 231 

meaus are used to ascertain he" accomplice, but this is the way 
of the world where men rule. 

We. remarked to a lady that in the country in America, among 
respectable families, these misfortunes seldom happened. " Why/' 
she exclaimed, " and here so often I" But the unfortunate are 
not hurled down to infamy so irrevocably as with us. Ladies 
in cities who need nurses, prefer this class, and they have no 
difficulty in finding employment, and cases are known to occur 
of girls wishing to make this their profession, and voluntarily 
passing through the degrading ordeal which alone can fit them 
for it. 

In some provinces at the north, the law requires that the son 
who is to inherit the farm, shall also be a father, and in these 
cases marriage is not consummated till a child is born, and a 
woman must not expect to be made the lawful wife who is not 
first a mother. But in this case there is no danger of desertion 
and disgrace ; but on the contrary, certain preservation. 

In all places where there is a regular betrothal, the law com- 
pels marriage, unless a marriage has been consummated with 
another without the knowledge of the parties concerned. If this 
happens, and the one first betrothed becomes a mother, the 
father must pay a certain sum every year till the child is fourteen, 
towards its support. But however frequently this may be the 
fate of women, however numerous her companions in misfortune, 
and though all above her are kind enough to pity and for- 
give, it is not the less a life-sorrow, the shadow of which dark- 
ens all her future path. One we knew whom we saw daily 
performing her duties with a quiet industry and faithfulness 
that betokened her one among a thousand, and in all her 
deportment and dress displaying a refined and delicate taste, 
which is seen among few born ladies. After many weeks, wq 



232 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

heard her story, which was also one among a thousand, in a 

different sense, and need not be repeated. The lady with whom 

she lived delayed for many weeks to tell her she had heard of 

the marriage of her betrothed, as she knew the blow it would 

be, and when she did at last as kyndly as possible, she said in 

telling us, the effect was the same as upon a lady. The poor girl 

swooned and was for hours insensible. When she recovered 

from this, there followed days of weeping and then a long severe 

illness, during which life hung by the frailest thread. She had 

been a merry-hearted thing, though never wantonly gay ; but 

never since has she been seen to smile. In America she would 

have been cast away, and could not again hope to earn an 

honest livelihood. But in this case the lady was only the more 

kind, though as high-toned and with as good principles as any 

could have been, who from education or custom would have 

acted differently. The girl did not lose her place and feel the 

weight of scorn in addition to her misfortune, and this, with 

many other instances which came to our knowledge, led us to 

ask, has scorn and public censure the effect it is intended they 

should exert in promoting morality ? A noble-hearted woman 

will suffer enough though the world should kindly say, " neither 

do I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more." If misfortune dooms 

her to irretrievable shame, and whilst the bitter sting is in her 

heart, she must also be trampled in the dust, and evermore be 

condemned to a life, from which she revolts not the less, because 

appearances are against her, who is to blame that she must 

swell the number of lost ones ? Leniency may be carried too 

far iu Germany on the whole, but it is also true that in America 

it is not carried far enough. In too many instances it is thought 

to be not much matter what the life of a poor peasant girl is, 

or what her sorrow, yet there are many ladies like this, who 



RIAGE FOE MONEY. 233 

make a distinction between weakness and corruption, and by 
judicious counsel, and kindly sympathy, bind up the broken 
heart, and heal the wounded spirit. 

At least it seems to be proved that proclaiming her through 
the streets by a town crier does not diminish the numbers who 
follow her example, as in the town where occurred these two 
hundred and eighty-four cases, in one year, this had been for 
centuries the custom, and the population was not five thousand. 
But we are quite sure that if a different kind of social life were 
allowed, and men and women could see each other upon terms 
of friendship, and for mutual intellectual improvement, there 
would be less secret intriguing in high circles and in low. 
Yet a great proportion of poverty and crime may be traced 
directly and indirectly to the unjust laws, and injudicious requi- 
sitions of the guilds. In the case we have mentioned, mar- 
riage would very soon have followed the betrothal ; but the 
young people lived in a small village where luxuries were few, 
and the trade of the young man was that of the finer depart- 
ment of cabinet-making. He had been made master workman, 
but could not be allowed this position in any other place, and 
could not therefore earn enough by his labor to acquire the 
sum the law makes necessary before marriage is allowed. If 
he removed to another place to work as a journeyman he must 
buy his citizenship, which was also impossible with his means. 
So they waited in hope of some better fortune, and the lady 
with whom the young girl was at service, was just about to 
offer them the money to enable them to begin, when she heard 
that the young man had yielded to the temptation which so 
often besets them, and married an old woman who offered him 
her deceised husband's establishment, if he would marry her ; 
and thus he, with all others who do the same, doomed himself 



234 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

to a life of degradation and misery for the sake of labor and 
bread. 

We knew one instance where a young man had married, in 
this way, a widow with one child, in order to acquire the right 
of citizenship and the position of master workman in a large 
town, and after her death wished to marry again, a young girl 
who was not a citizen of the place, though she had lived there 
several years. But her means did not allow her to pay the 
sum, which is two hundred and fifty dollars, and before he 
could marry her he must pay this, and also deposit a certain 
sum for the support of the child of his former wife, and 
another, to make sure that he had a competency for his new 
housekeeping, as the state in its parental wisdom and kindness 
will not allow people to marry without the certainty of a pro- 
vision for a family. All this required so much that both 
together, with the generous assistance of friends, could not 
make up the sum, and so they were obliged to give up the idea 
of embarking their fortunes together on the sea of life. Tn 
such instances it is very common for fathers to say, if you will 
marry my daughter I will pay the price, and though the 
daughter has never seen the man to whom she is thus offered, 
she is sold without scruple, and thus made what the law and 
the world call respectable. 

That hundreds of children are born every year, for whose 
maintenance no one is responsible, is known and permitted ; 
but people cannot be allowed to wear the badge of respecta- 
bility without paying the state so much money, though we 
presume they do not frame the statute in these words. 

Nothing procures the right of citizenship but money. 
No parents of any position are citizens of any principality 
in Germany, without paying for itj and they may spend 



4telZENSHIP — PASSPORTS. 235 

their lives therejfaud their children be born and grow old 
there, yet neither they nor their children's children are citizens 
without the price. An Englishman, in his travels, met a young 
man who had been some years in America, and returned for a 
little time to see his friends. The police, the passports, and 
all the trammels of social life, seemed to him a thousand times 
more intolerable than ever, and he exclaimed : "It is 
better to be dead in America than alive in Europe;" and every 
European who goes there thinks the same, notwithstanding the 
bluster they make, and the fault they pretend to find for the 
sake of magnifying their importance. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE ODENWALD TOBACCO RAISING- AND SMOKING BLACK BREAD 

COSTUMES GAMES LEGEND OF EMMA AND EGINHARD — WILD 

ANIMALS — BEETS AND BEET SUGAR HABITS AND HEALTH 

LANGUAGE AND CUSTOMS. 

The valleys of the Odenwald are watered by the Necker, 
which flows through them for thirty miles, before it reaches the 
plain near Heidelberg, where it has been described a thousand 
times asa " tiara of diamonds set in emerald," and where it is 
indeed the mirror to one of the loveliest landscapes human 
vision is ever permitted to behold. From the hill-tops, the 
Rhine may be seen, too, winding away in another direction, 
and the whole country, upon both rivers, a garden under 
such perfect cultivation, as few among Americans bestow upon 
the choicest parterre. There are a few vineyards ; but neither 
vines nor fruit trees are so much attended to as in other parts 
of southern Germany, though the climate is sufficiently genial; 
because the people wish a more certain dependence. Cereals 
and vegetables do not so often fail of producing a sufficient 
quantity to support life ; but a bad season will destroy grapes 
and fruit to such an extent as to cause a famine. Tobacco 
flourishes luxuriantly and in the fields looks very rich ; but is a 
dismal sight in the autumn, hung over all the roofs and sides 
of the houses, black and shriveled, to dry and become fit to 
be made into quids and quirls. A fastidious American gentle- 
man says it bears no comparison with that which is grown in 



STEAMBOAT CABIN SMOKING. 237 

Havana, and he would as soon smoke dried cabbage as German 
cigars. The difference in the price indicates either a difference 
in the article or in the country; the one selling for five dollars 
a thousand, and the other for fifty. We only wish they were 
beyond the means of any, as only by empty purses can men be 
driven from the disgusting habit of smoking and chewing the 
filthy weed. An American also remarked : " he wondered the 
women did not all look like bacon, they were so obliged to live in 
smoke." While another ungallantly replied: "he thought 
they did." How they endure it, is perfectly inconceivable. It 
became necessary that we should be shut up in the cabin of a 
river steamer, one cold autumn day, and in the same room were 
fifty men, pipe in mouth. Not being able to breathe, we pushed 
back the window a few inches, and seated ourselves in front to 
catch every breeze and annoy others as little as possible. Bat 
the first time our eyes were turned away a gentleman took the 
opportunity to shut the window, and did it so softly that we 
had no suspicion of the agency by which it was done. For a 
little time we tried to endure it, but being nigh unto choking, 
we at length ventured to admit the air again, though by a 
much smaller aperture, when another gentleman called rudely 
out, " Madam, we cannot have the window open, shut it im- 
mediately." But not being accustomed to obey so implicitly, 
any lord of creation, we remained quiet, with open mouth in 
order to catch every particle of fresh air, or water that should 
kindly enter. But soon the steward entered, and the gentleman 
requested him to shut the window. He politely replied that 
the lady preferred it open. They said, " no matter for the 
lady, we want it shut." An American gentleman had sat by till 
now; but fast asleep. The buzz awoke him, and without the least 
suspicion of the cause of the commotion, he rubbed his eyes 



238 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

and opened the window; quite innocent of any intentional offence, 
only expressing his surprise that we could sit there in the smoke. 
But before he had finished the words, the before-mentioned 
gentleman laid rude hands upon him, and commanded him to 
shut the window. Not being exactly wide awake, and having 
no idea of what had passed, he shook off his assailant rather 
roughly, and a serious affray was the consequence; which the 
captain was called to settle, and to say also that no window 
could be opened in the cabin. We had no inclination to resist 
lawful authority, and therefore submitted to sit the rest of the 
day in a room as densely filled with these horrible fumes as any 
room devoted entirely to curing hams is allowed to be, and 
here sat several ladies working embroidery, and in great amaze- 
ment that we should be disturbed by such a trifle. These 
gentlemen were not Bauersleute, but merchants, lawyers, and 
physicians, astonished beyond measure that a lady should think 
of interfering with the comfort and wishes of mm. 

In some places an attempt is made to raise Indian corn, but 
we have never seen any that deserved the name. A whole field 
will sometimes have only one or two ears upon a stock. They 
either do not understand how to manage it, or the climate and 
soil are uncongenial, though we cannot tell why this should be. 
They use it only for geese and pigs. The great staple is rye, 
which they think is cheaper and more healthy, but a Frenchman 
who pretends to a chemical and practical knowledge of husban- 
dry, says wheat can be grown as cheap, and is far more nour- 
ishing. It will take a long time to convince Germans that he 
is correct, for they adhere as tenaciously to black bread as to 
tobacco. These huge black loaves are seen everywhere, and 
nowhere in Germany is it the custom for the baking to be done 
in the family. In the country villages there is one grand oven 



BLACK BEEAD BAKING AND WASHING. 239 

to which all transport their loaves after having kneaded them 
at home. Carts are seen at all times going through the streets 
loaded with this commodity, piled in like so many stones, and 
about as hard. The form of the loaves is oval, about two feet 
in length, and of corresponding breadth, and the color that of a 
brown Indian crust. The bread is always sour, because to make 
it very light, it is permitted to stand fermenting till it is honey- 
comb. Among the peasantry and common Burger the great 
loaf is placed upon the table, morning, noon and night, for each 
one to cut a slice till it is gone. To our taste it is horrible 
stuff, which we can in nowise swallow. But the wheat bread 
is as universally good ; from north to south, from east to west, 
we have never seen it otherwise, and this is both kneaded and 
baked at the bakers, and always wet with milk. It is light 
and sweet, with a rich nourishing taste. An American writer, 
traveling in Germany, laments that American housewives do 
not equal the Germans in making bread, and does not seem to 
have learned, all the time he was here, that German house- 
wives do not know half as much of bread-making as American. 
Never a particle do they make. What a relief to these 
housewives must it be never to be obliged to bake,, and then 
never to be obliged to wash ! Would they not think in New 
England it were Paradise, indeed, never to have in their kitch- 
ens the muss occasioned by the meal, and dough, and heat, the 
parade of tubs and suds and slops attendant upon the duties 
of Monday and Saturday, to say nothing of the extra occa- 
sions, when there must be an extra parade. What an easy time 
they would think they had, and never think help necessary in 
parlor or kitchen, and with their nicely constructed domiciles, 
painted floors and papered walls, they would certainly be able 
to do all the work, and have much time to play. Thirty or forty 



24:0 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

loaves are baked up at once, but there is a continuous eating, 
which requires a continuous array of dishes, and washing of 
plates and cups, though the ceremonies at table are simple 
enough. In all the houses of the middle classes there is a 
round table standing always before the sofa, in every room. 
Upon this the cloth is laid, among a great proportion of them 
five times a day, or perhaps at ten in the morning and four in 
the afternoon the white covering is dispensed with, and at these 
hours the meal is very light. Among the peasantry the table 
is long and square, and stands before a bench, both being im- 
movable. The Burger perhaps drinks wine in the forenoon, 
and the Bauermann beer, but coffee is never dispensed with by 
either, at breakfast and after dinner. Supper among all classes 
is at eight or half-past, summer and winter, and is about the 
same as a New England breakfast. The peasantry of the Oden- 
wald live a great proportion of the year upon black bread and 
potatoes, indulging in meat only at weddings, Christmas, and 
church consecration feasts, and are said to average a longer life 
than any others in Germany, the number of those who live to 
the age of sixty, seventy, and even ninety, being not few but 
many. The ancient costume of the men was a long dark blue 
coat, with rows of blue or bright buttons, and when they could 
afford it, for grand occasions, of silver, with the three-cornered 
hat that is still retained by court officials, but it is beginning to 
disappear, and the common dress of the laborer, as seen in all 
other lands, to be adopted in its stead The women, as among 
the Indians, yield more slowly to innovations. Their caps are 
still ornamented with beads and ribbons, plaited like combs, 
made into enormous bows, to stand out from each side of the 
head. The peculiar head-dress of each district is retained 
long after every other part of the peculiar costume is given up ; 



GAMES EMMA AND EGESTEARD. 241 

and self-denial of every other kind practised, that they may be 
able to purchase the ribbons and ornaments for this. 

We have found two or three games and amusements strik- 
ingly like those of the Iroquois. One which is practised by 
the Indians at their New Year's feast, and among the peasan- 
try of southern Germany at Christmas is, for two men to dress 
themselves, one to represent winter, in straw, moss, and ever- 
greens, and the other as summer, in ivy and fresh garlands, and 
go from house to house begging. When nothing is given them 
they steal if they can, but this must be done with the greatest 
stealth, as it is an everlasting disgrace to be caught in the act, 
though all is in sport. It seems to us a remarkable coincidence 
that there should be exactly the same game among these two 
different people. Also, when in the long winter evenings they 
gather round the light of the resin torch, which is still the 
chandelier of the American Indian and the German peasant, to 
listen to the stories of the aged men of the days of old, the 
histories, sagas, and traditions, which have come down through 
a hundred generations, if they vary from the truth or the form 
which has been repeated by all before them, in order to add 
interest to their tale, they are never forgiven, but looked upon 
with distrust and dislike ever after. These were in former days 
their only chronicles, and if not preserved with correctness 
were of no value. So said the Indian and so says the Oden- 
w alder. 

It was to a little village among these wilds that the daughter 
of Charlemagne is said to have fled with her lover, from her 
father's vengeance. She wished to marry the secretary of the 
king, which, of course, was to descend from her rank, and 
when their liaison was made known, the one was threatened with 
death and the other with the scarcely less terrible living death 

11 



242 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

of imprisonment within the convent walls. But they succeeded 
in making their flight, and rested not till within the darkest re- 
cesses of the forest of the Odenwald, where they took up their 
abode in a rude hut, and lived by daily toil unknown, and yet 
content, for seven years. Then, according to the fashion of 
traditions, the great emperor passed that way on his return 
from a hunting excursion, and entered a hut to ask for a cup 
of cold water. Immediately he was recognized by the daugh- 
ter, who hastened to prepare for him the refreshment which he 
needed. When he seated himself at table what was his sur- 
prise to find before him his favorite dish, which only his Emma 
had known how to prepare for him. He looked up and knew 
at once that her hands had provided it for him now. She read 
her pardon in his eye, and fell upon his neck, where the hus- 
band and disgraced secretary found her on his entrance. It 
need not be added that complete reconciliation followed, and 
the happy pair were taken home to live again in the palace 
A cloister was built by them where the cottage stood, to com- 
memorate their sorrow and their joy, and the place still bears 
the appellation of " blessed spot," which words were uttered at 
the time by the king in his transports at discovering his long 
lost child. 

In these days the hunter is almost deprived of his sport 
among the fastnesses which once afforded inexhaustible supplies 
of game to the royal parties that spent days and nights within 
their shades. Foxes, wild cats, weasels, squirrels, hares, and 
rabbits, are still plenty, but not a bear has been seen since 
1622, when the last one was killed at Darmstadt, and the last 
wolf in 1841, and it is more than two centuries since they have 
found a beaver. 

But the hunting of wild cats and rabbits is a privilege still 



GAME AND GAME LAWS. 243 

of only royal and noble families. For a peasant to shoot a 
squirrel would be a crime in royal eyes, as great as stealing a 
cow, and if the punishment corresponds, they will not often 
venture upon such sport. It is not many years since a poor 
man was confined in prison eighteen months in the kingdom of 
Hanover, in darkness and solitude, for an offence to which he 
was probably driven by starvation. At the end of this time he 
was brought forth and commanded to confess his guilt. Upon 
his remaining silent, the thumb-screw was applied, and after 
repeated applications and hours of anguish, he was forced to 
confession, and it was that he had stolen a cow ! 

A forest-master and game-keeper are kept constantly upon 
the alert, to watch the woods, on account of the animals and 
also the trees, and no bird of the air or four-footed thing, nor a 
tree or shrub without permission, is at the service of the poor. 
But the forest-master is sometimes known to wink at the crime, 
if a peasant takes a hare or rabbit, or bit of wood, because he 
lives among them and knows their poverty ; but they are 
taught, and really believe it to be a crime, and therefore do not 
often hazard their lives by such an offence. They gain their 
bread by the sweat of their brows, and though so poor and 
toil-worn, seem content. Their love for their mountains is like 
that of the Swiss peasant, and their songs tell the yearning 
of their hearts for home, when war and famine drive them 
forth. But they know nothing of the freedom of the Swiss 
mountaineer, and their cottages do not exhibit the neatness 
and thrift of the Swiss peasantry. Their homes look always 
filthy to an Englishman or American ; the women have the 
coarse ways and habits of the men, and no conception of the 
tidy, comfortable cottage of the American farmer or English 
peasant. It cannot be otherwise when the mothers and daugh- 



244 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

ters are in the field, where you see them without bonnet, cap, 
shoes or stockings ; sunburnt and old at thirty, though at this 
age they get so dry and tough, that they look afterwards 
always the same. 

The shelves for the dishes are in the kitchen, and always 
open to all the dust ; a bed in every room, and pigsty and sta- 
ble under the same roof. Seldom any are so well off as to have 
an extra set of cups and plates for company, and that which 
they use, like that of the middle classes in cities, is the common 
white ware, which is seldom in these days upon the table at all 
in America, but kept for baking purposes. But you never see 
a pie in Germany, and not often a pudding. If there is any 
cake, it is like the bread purchased at the baker's, and never 
good — a New England housewife would not think it fit to eat. 
If you enter a peasant's cot unceremoniously, they will ask you 
to take a cup of coffee, and with it a piece of bread, which, 
like them, you must dip in the cup before carrying it to your 
mouth. This way of eating bread and coffee is also universal 
among all classes. It will be placed upon the table without 
cloth or other service than cup and saucer, pewter or 
German-silver spoon, and your fingers. But to this you are 
welcomed in the same way as to the venison of the Indian, 
and commit an unpardonable offence if you refuse, though you 
may already be full. 

Among the lower order of burghers, Sauerkraut and salad are 
the almost every day accompaniments of dinner and supper ; 
and these, with cheese made of sour milk, and sour bread, 
cause a peculiar smell in all their kitchens, which often creeps 
out and indeed permeates the dress and fills the air, so that 
sourness is the universal perfume. 

The peasantry sell everything they raise and everything they 



^ FARMING ECONOMY. 245 

make, not even indulging in the luxury of Sauerkraut except at 
feasts. Every inch of ground is made to produce something, 
and sometimes the same soil nourishes two or three successive 
crops. After everything else, they realize a good harvest of 
turnips, and dig, dig, dig from April to November. Besides 
the cereals, tobacco, potatoes, and turnips, they have cabbage, 
colewort, lucerne, rape, saintfoin, poppies, hemp, "and black 
turnips. Buckwheat is raised extensively at the north and 
south, though it is Buchweitzen, buckwheat, from its resemblance 
to the beech nut. Poppy seeds, besides being made into opium, 
are boiled and eaten like sago, not a stock or leaf is wasted. 
Everything that can be cut green is used to fodder the cattle, 
and children are everywhere seen washing the weeds and all 
refuse that cattle can eat. They gather the leaves and moss 
in the woods, and pick up every stick or dried branch that can 
serve for fuel. The lupin is raised extensively for manure, and 
considered to enrich the land better than anything else, and 
will grow in all climates. Besides these are the hop fields and 
the beet fields. The former seem almost as extensive as the 
vineyards, and did we not know they were hops, would look 
almost as pretty. Beer is even cheaper than wine, a bottle 
costing only one-fourth as much as a bottle of wine, and that 
which comes from Bavaria is considered the best. But it is 
everywhere the common beverage, and to be had in its whole- 
some, unadulterated state. Yet too much can be drunk of it 
even then, and those who indulge too freely are most blowzy 
and stupid-looking beings. 

Beets have been cultivated for the last thirty years very 
extensively for sugar. We find always in the most humble 
neasant's cot the best of loaf sugar, when sugar is used at all, 
for their coffee. In southern Germany it is generally beet- 



246 



PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 



sugar, which is whiter than any other, and one, two, and three 
cents cheaper a pound, but considered not so sweet, and there- 
fore not so cheap on the whole. But in Austria a great pro- 
portion of the population are entirely ignorant of the uss of 
sugar, and in Bavaria there are consumed on an average, only 
two and a half pounds a year by each individual, and of course 
this must indicate that half of them never taste it at all The 
use of sugar is considered one of the evidences of a higner 
civilization, and if it is to be taken as a test, Austria and 
Bavaria are the lowest in the scale, or about the same as 
Russia and Turkey. The Turks use scarcely any, as they never 
put it in their coffee, and know not the use of tea; and the serfs 
of Russia are scarcely more degraded and destitute of all that 
modern civilization considers necessary to human beings than 
the masses of the Austrian population. They know almost as 
little of the use of money as they do of sugar. In the same 
year that Austria consumed 33,000,000 pounds, China con- 
sumed 1,000,000,000. And America is many millions in 
advance of any other. The table which we consult was made 
several years since, but the ratio continues about the same, and 
as it gives at a glance a better idea of the condition of the 
people than any description, we transfer it. It indicates the 
average quantity consumed by each individual, at that time, 
in a year : 



England, . 


20 pounds 


Ireland, 


4 " 


France, 


5i " 


Prussia, 


5 " 


Bavaria, 


. 9* " 


Switzerland, 


6 " 


Belgium, . 


15 " 


Holland, . 


14 « 



Denmark, 

Sweden, 

Norway, 

Spain, 

Portugal, 

Italy, 

Austria, 

Kussia, 



pounds 



SUGAB. 247 

The difference between England and Ireland is the same in 
sugar as in everything else, but in some of the other instances, 
where it is made, more is consumed than among people of nearly 
the same condition, in other respects, who must import a large 
proportion of all they use. But though it is not a necessity 
like bread, it is a luxury people deny themselves only when 
compelled, and we involuntarily judge a family to Joe comfort- 
able in other respects if they can afford sugar. 

A great proportion of that which is imported brown, is re- 
fined after its arrival, by which the greater tariff upon white 
sugar is avoided, and the expense lessened. But great effort 
is being made to produce all the sugar they consume, as not 
only the beet, but also the vine, the melon, the maple, and maize 
can be grown in different parts for this purpose. Of these the 
beet is the most important, as it is valued not only for its sac- 
charine properties, but for the amount of forage it furnishes, 
which, as we have said before, has become for the last twenty 
years the absorbing subject of consideration among the agri- 
culturists of Germany. It is said to enrich the soil by the 
invisible contribution it makes, and to afford three times as much 
nourishment for cattle by its leaves, as the same surface devoted 
to hay. Then from the sale of the root to the sugar manufacturer, 
twice as much money is realized as from the sale of the quantity 
of barley which can be raised on the same ground ; and greatly 
as the cultivation of the beet has increased, and the quantity 
of land devoted to it enlarged, the amount of cereals has not 
in consequence diminished. They have occupied less space, but 
by enriching the soil with the greater quantity of manure fur- 
nished by foraging plants, they increase the quantity per acre. 

Those which are red outside and white within are considered 
to produce most sugar, and next the white and yellow, and 



248 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

those which are small more in proportion to their weigtt than 
the larger. Analysis discovers in the beet twenty-nine different 
materials, the principal of which are water, fibre, crystalized 
sugar, oil, gum, coloring matter, ammonia, lime, and oxide of 
iron, though all these may not dwell in the living plant. There 
are also twenty-five kinds of beet roots, which produce from 
eight to ten per cent, of sugar. The soil must be very rich and 
deeply tilled, and a cool or temperate climate is better than one 
very warm. We see that in tropical climates, the plants which 
produce sugar are nourished by the air, and in temperate, by the 
earth, and the beets which grow in colder climates are sweeter 
than those which grow in warm climates. 

It is said the sweetest grapes do not produce the most sugar, 
but from twenty to thirty pounds of raw sugar are made from 
a hundred pounds of juice. 

The maple is not so profitable in Europe for sugar, as any 
other tree or plant from which it is produced ; on an average, 
only four ounces, and at the most only two pounds, being made 
from a hundred pounds of juice, and to boil and perfect these 
hundred pounds they burn forty thousand pounds of wood ! 

The maize, in the climate and soil adapted to it, produces the 
same quantity and quality as the cane upon an acre of ground. 
The brown sugar produced from the melon is similar to that 
from the cane, and the cultivation not so expensive as the beet 
root. 

From these facts, we must conclude that sugar will become 
more and more abundant, especially in the countries where it is 
made from the beet, which is in other respects so valuable an 
agricultural product. The sugar beet is most cultivated in 
Baden, but is spreading fast through all Germany where the cli 
mate and soil will admit. The gallons of wine to each individ. 



HABITS AND HEALTH. 249 

ual average many times more than the pounds of sugar or meat, 
both in France and Germany, and cannot be so nourishing. 
Nowhere among the peasantry is meat an article of daily food, 
while in New England the farm laborer thinks he is very ill- 
used if he has not meat three times a day. In America, enough 
food is wasted every year to support the family of the German 
peasant, as they live, half that time. But the universally ac- 
cepted idea, that the average health of the whole people is 
greater than in America, is not confirmed by inquiry or obser- 
vation. The women of the cities do not look so pale and thin, 
but color and flesh are not always indications of health. The 
proportion is so great that you are inclined to think almost 
every person you meet is afflicted with salt-rheum or scrofula, 
so covered are their faces with a dreadful humor, and the usual 
infirmities of humanity do not seem to be less common. The 
delicate bloom and beauty for which American women are so 
renowned, is certainly very scarce ; but one reason of this is, 
that wine and beer are used much more habitually, and must 
necessarily give to their skin a coarse texture, and ruin a fine 
complexion, if it is originally possessed. We have often heard 
American women give this as a reason for never indulging in 
wine, that it would make them look so coarse. 

The proportion of persons who are from birth or infancy de- 
formed, or who never pass the physical stature of children is 
startling. In the cities one cannot walk without meeting one 
at every few steps, and in Dresden and some other large towns, 
statistics give the proportion as one in every twelve. In Amer- 
ica these are very rare, and then as the result of accident, 
rather than inherited disease. In our intercourse with women 
of the higher and middle classes, we hear quite as much 
'•omplaining, and should not conclude we were imong a pecn- 

31* 



250 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

liarly healthy people, from anything we see or hear. Among 
the peasantry we can hardly judge — they grow old so young, 
and their labor so disfigures them. In city and country, among 
the peasant girls, we are struck with the beautiful glossy hair, 
which almost every one possesses, and the neatness with which 
it is combed and braided. It is evidently their peculiar pride, 
but where it is the custom for them to carry water, hay, manure, 
and everything upon their heads, they become bald upon the 
top very young, by the incessant friction of the pail and bas- 
ket, and cannot keep it so neat. Those who work in the field, 
and yet have not the harvest labor to perform, seem very tough, 
but so often they look forlorn after attaining to middle life, that 
we cannot help thinking the severe toil of the field and the house, 
together with the exhausting penalties of womanhood, destroys 
their constitutions, and before life's pilgrimage is half done 
dooms them to the grave. 

The language of the Odenwald is said to be middle German, 
though we do not exactly know whether this means half way 
between high and low German or not. But every district has 
Its dialect, and those separated by a forest, a river, or a moun- 
tain, can scarcely understand each other. Instead of saying 
Grossvater for grandfather, they say Herrcke, and for Grossmutter 
Frache. On the prairies of the west we have heard German 
wives call their husbands He, when speaking of them, present 
or absent, instead of speaking their names. This is the way 
the Indian woman speaks of hers, and in no way can be induced 
to speak his name, considering it disrespectful. In the Oden- 
wald the women reiterate continually Er, he, when talking of 
their husbands. And the men say mei old, when speaking of 
their wives. This too we have heard often in America among 
the descendants of Germans who spoke English — except that 



LANGUAGE AND CUSTOMS. 251 

they add another word and say, my old woman, and sometimes 
merely my woman. There is about the same difference in all 
things between the different German tribes, and their descend- 
ants, as between the different tribes of American Indians. In 
some respects they are the same everywhere, and there will 
always be found some things peculiar to each. 

Like the Indian too, the Odenwalder is very .suspicious ol 
strangers, and very tenacious of his old customs, that have been 
handed down from his fathers. But towards those whom 
he knows to be friends, he is cordial, communicative and 
obliging, and among those, who have almost every one a son or 
brother in America, we were in no danger of being treated with 
coldness. Our great trouble was that each one expected us to 
know his friends, though one was in New York and another in 
Wisconsin. In the family in which we were, four had gone to 
the New World, and were all so prosperous, that their letters 
were always filled with glad tidings, and the intelligence of the 
family concerning our country was much beyond that of many 
fine city people, who would consider themselves two or three 
ranks superior. As usual, they had the strong love of the Ger- 
man for their fatherland, but a bitter hatred of its tyrants. 
Very kindly they felt towards the people among whom their 
children had found home and friends and fortune, and in all our 
travels we have not found nobler hearts, united to that intel- 
ligence which always liberalizes, and never in our lives experi- 
enced more genuine and heartfelt kindness, which causes us to 
turn ever to that little spot as one of the brightest and sunniest 
in Germany. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

WASHING SAUERKRAUT H0US3 FURNITURE HOUSEKEEPING — ■ 

GIRLS GOING TO AMERICA SCHOOL SYSTEM AND SCHOOLS 

PAPERS MASTERS EDUCATION OF GIRLS. 

After the vintage and the harvest are finished, commences the 
house-cleaning and the preparations for the grand wash, and dur- 
ing October, one may see everywhere the lawns and the grass- 
plots covered with the snowy linen, and long lines, forming miles 
of net-work by every dimpling brook, and under every green tree. 

The harvests of linen are protected the same way as harvests 
of wheat. During all the washing season, men are employed 
night and day to watch the grounds ; but are in this case paid 
by the families instead of the government, and receive a cent a 
wash ; but each expects the articles under his supervision to be 
so arranged that he can attend to several at a time, else this 
small sum would not pay. If one family is so unfortunate as to 
occupy the green alone, the watchman will not remain upon the 
premises unless they will pay him the price of several. If they 
do not choose to do this every article must be taken in at night, 
and hung out again in the morning. It is a curious sight, those 
throngs of busy women with great tubs and baskets of wet 
cloth, wending their way to the brook, where they may be seen 
with bare legs and feet, bare heads and bare arms, sousing and 
splashing in the cold water, then ringing, and shaking, and snap- 
ping and " hanging out to dry." What a laughing, and giggling 



WASHING. 253 

and gossiping among so many merry-hearted maidens, and then 
how clean and nice those piles of fine linen as they are gathered 
in heaps upon the yet green grass. The washerwomen go from 
family to family during all the autumn, and in every one they 
commence their operation, at exactly twelve o'clock at night. 
From the great chests in the garret, where it has been collect- 
ing for half a year, the family bring the linen and deposit it 
in the washroom, provide the soap and lye, get the tubs and 
kettles in readiness and retire. At the appointed time, enter 
these weird sisters of the suds, and begin their task, which is to 
pour hot lye all night, draining it off as it cools and heating it 
over, till everything has been thus two or three times saturated 
with this boiling decoction; afterwards they are rubbed accord- 
ing to their necessities, rinsed and dried. If the running brook 
is near, the finishing touch is given in its limpid stream. So 
great pride have they in these stacks of fine linen that they 
sometimes borrow, and even sometimes hire, a quantity of a 
neighbor to fill their lines. This is their wealth, as fine dresses 
are of other people, or fine furniture, and those who pass by 
ask of the watchman or the maidens, whose wash is that ? If 
it is wondrous large, and the quality wondrous fine, it becomes 
the subject of village gossip, and those who possess it are set 
down as rich and thrifty housewives, as some whom we know 
are considered rich who have given great entertainments with 
borrowed china and silver. 

We inquired particularly concerning the expense, and learned 
that for six in the family, two days will be required to finish the 
wash. They pay the women eighty cents a day, and must give 
them plenty of coffee and substantial food, and witli this and 
the lye and soap and extra fire, they reckon a six months' wash- 
ing to cost about three dollars ! But a lady in the city told ns 



254: PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

that she had her washing done in the house every fortnight^ 
rather than send it to the bleachers, because it was cheaper. 
It took a washerwoman two days, and she paid her twenty cents 
a day, and she of course found the soap and extra fire herself, 
and one of her servants assisted daring the whole time. If she 
sent it away, those who took it charged for these, and it 
amounted to more on the whole. But three or four dollars is 
certainly a very trifling expense for a six months' wash. Where 
I happened to be, a woman came in to do the starching also, 
and assist in the ironing, which was not included in the sum we 
mentioned. 

The country linen is mostly what in New England is called 
home made, and worn unbleached till it becomes white by con- 
continued washing. It is also coarse compared to that of the 
manufactories ; but wears a life time. During the autumn and 
winter, the little spinning wheel is the constant inmate of the 
family-room of peasant and burgher, and we have also seen it 
in many a city parlor, where the ladies sometimes have it made 
of ebony, and the cup to wet the thread, of silver, and upon all, 
gay ribbons adorn the distaff, and a gay-colored paper or cloth 
binds the flax to keep it clean and smooth. 

There must, of course, be great numbers of articles where the 
washing is done so seldom, and this species of wealth seems out 
of all proportion with everything else. But notwithstanding the 
wealth and the poetry, we cannot help considering it a filthy 
custom, which will certainly vanish before the light of civilization. 

Another grand operation is the making of Sauerkraut for the 
winter's use. For this they do not use cabbage alone, but also 
beans, and. sometimes turnips. Whatever the vegetable may 
be, it is first washed, trimmed, and if cabbage, cut in fine slices, 
and placed in a great barrel or tub ; first a layer of salt, though 



8AUERKRAUT — HOUSE FURNITURE. 255 

not in great quantities, and then a layer of cabbage, till it is 
full ; but during the process the persons pack it tight with 
great pounders, so that it is very solid, and then covers are 
placed upon the top, kept down with heavy stones. Thus a 
fermentation is produced which gives it an acid taste, and 
when rightly done and carefully kept it is not disagreeble to a 
strange palate, and one may soon learn to like -it. When 
we heard the process described, we could not help thinking the 
appellation, we heard given it by an Englishman, correct. 
He said it was nothing more nor less than rotten cabbage ; but 
when we saw it, all unpleasant impressions were removed. It 
was clean and wholesome. In the city, few families make their 
own, but buy it of those who prepare it in large quantities for 
sale. When it is not rightly done, and fermentation is carried 
beyond the proper point, it is neither good nor healthy, so it 
becomes a nice art to make Sauerkraut* We have no doubt it 
was among the favorite dishes upon the table of Charlemagne, 
and very likely was made by the Germans of the days of Attila. 
In Frankfort it is the regular Friday dinner for all the people 
during the winter, but in the country it comes much oftener, as 
do also the boiled beef and salads for which they are so famous. 
Yet there is the same importance given to the cookery, and 
housekeeping talked of with the same ideas of the wondrous 
capacity it requires to perform its operations. One would think 

* The regular cook-book receipt for making Sauerkraut is the following: "Take 
whitehead cabbage, cut out the thick, hard veins, and slit it as fine as possible. For a 
half-barrel take seventy pounds, or about thirty-five large heads of cabbage, one pound 
of salt, a quarter pound of cummin, half an ounce of turmeric or saffron; mix these 
witlfthe salt, and as the cabbage is packed, strew it upon each layer, and from time 
to time use the pounder to press it tight. When the barrel is full, place it in the cellar, 
cover it with large cabbage leaves, place a board upon the top, and upon this a hf-avy 
stone. It must stand fourteen days before it is fit for use, and what is taken out for din- 
ner must be all eaten or put back in the barrel, as it is not goe i if it remains in the air.* 



250 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

that all the mysterious compounds might be learned in a week 
that are manufactured in the course of a year ; yet we hear a 
girl of eighteen say she knows nothing yet of cookery, but will 
learn before she is married. Her sister has done the cooking 
six years, ever since she left school, at fourteen, and how she 
could go in and out every day and not learn herself, we do not 
understand. Every day without exception we have boiled beef, 
sometimes potatoes, and sometimes cabbage, and sometimes tur- 
nips. Occasionally a piece of fried veal or pork, and black 
bread. The table dishes are pewter, though one of common 
white earthen is given to the boarder or guest, as being more 
genteel, and the serving the same as everywhere else — that is, 
each one serves himself as he needs. If it is a burgher and not a 
peasant family, the house is large and commodious, all the un- 
occupied rooms are neat and in good order, and the unpainted 
floors scoured to perfect whiteness. In the parlor is a sofa of 
hair-cloth, and in front of it the table covered with a fine red 
cloth, two bureaus, and cane-bottom chairs. Upon the bureaus 
is the usual array of knicknacks which we see in every Ger- 
man parlor, being the gifts of Christmas, birth-days and name- 
days, little earthen men and women, all manner of designs in 
porcelain, china cups, and baskets of embroidered cards. 
Upon the walls in every room are pictures, and the ceiling 
over-head is painted in fresco, as it is everywhere among all 
classes above the peasantry. We have asked in some families 
the expense of these frescoed walls, and been told that in very 
ordinary houses, this alone costs from twelve to twenty dollars 
a room. It is very pretty, and in a sleeping room serves to 
amuse one who must lie in bed during the hours of day ; but 
for ourselves we should much prefer a carpet for our feet, or 
many other comforts which this money would purchase, if the 



HOUSEKEEPING. 257 

condition of our finances did not permit us to indulge in every 
luxury. In the dining and family room, is a piano which is 
treated very much as if it were a deal table, covered with all 
manner of trumpery, soiled with dust and the drippings of 
tallow candles ; yet here has been educated one musician, now 
a composer, and of considerable reputation, in America, where he 
has been several years ; and here is another learning the same 
art, who is yet but eight years old, and performs the most 
difficult pieces of Mozart, and plays the organ every Sunday 
in church, though his little feet cannot reach the pedals. The 
spinning-wheel and piano keep time together, and the knitting- 
needles are everywhere. The girls are not taught music, be- 
cause it would be considered a branch of education beyond 
their sphere in life, though one has a decided taste and talent 
for it. It is only necessary that girls should know how to 
keep house, and among those with whom they must associate, 
to manifest an ambition for anything else would subject them to 
envy and reproach that would make any acquirement or ac- 
complishment a thorn. But the parents have recovered from 
such narrow-minded views, and we have often noticed when we 
met a family who had children in America, that they were 
more liberal, and infinitely more intelligent than others of the 
same class. The long letters which are allowed to contain what 
newspapers dare not say, enlighten them, and in time prove good 
means of education. The housekeeping to which the daughters 
must sacrifice everything else, requires but little of their time, 
and certainly requires but a very ordinary capacity, and among 
good housekeepers in England or America, would be called 
very far from excellent, as would be the case almost anywhere. 
It is the custom in the cities for the young ladies to be sent to 
practise a year with the cook of some large hotel, several hours 



258 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

each day. When we ask why they do not learn at home, they 
answer that they do not have all kinds of cooking going on 
there, and besides, the servants do not like the trouble of them. 
But others say that those who serve their apprenticeship in this 
way learn only the higher departments, and when they have to 
nttend to the daily wants of a small private family, are as 
ignorant as if they had not learned at all. In these cases the 
daughters take no interest in family affairs until they are done 
going to school, and are strangers to every duty of household 
economy. But after they have become young ladies, they 
spend a year in fitting themselves for housekeepers. Often 
when a young lady has become betrothed, you hear it said she 
has gone to spend six months, or a year, in learning to cook. 
This is certainly better than not to learn at all ; but if they 
were to practise a little every day at home, during their 
girlhood, they would become better fitted for all the duties of 
the household. It is this great parade and talk of the Ger- 
man ladies, about their housekeeping, that has given them 
the renown of excelling all others. We know very many 
ladies in New England who have never talked an hour in their 
lives about their household duties, and yet have them performed 
to perfection ; who employ the same number of servants as 
German ladies of the same rank, and have better dinners and 
much more tasteful and well arranged tables, without ever 
cooking themselves. To say that a lady who is able to have 
servants must cook herself, is the same as to say the President 
of the United States must be his own secretary, in order that 
his penmanship may be well executed. He is expected to 
have a head that can comprehend the duties of many depart- 
ments and see that they are well filled, but not to perform the 
labor himself. 



GIRLS GOING TO AMERICA. 259 

S r e hear the same talk about learning to sew, and girls 
g\ ^.teen and twenty have not yet learned to cut shirts and 
dra .vers, and go to their mothers every few minutes to be shown 
how to turn corners and fit different parts together, which we 
have seen done by American girls of thirteen, without thinking 
it was any great accomplishment. But all America is judged 
by what travelers see at hotels in New York. It is the univer- 
sal belief in Germany that American children are not required 
to obey their parents, but go and come night and day, exactly 
as they please. A great proportion of those in New England 
would be glad if this were somewhere near the truth ; but there, 
as here, the fault lies in a different direction — in too severe a 
discipline, which ruins more children than excessive indulgence, 
or perhaps it would be more correct to say the discipline is not 
of the right kind. 

It is very amusing to hear a German mother talk with her 
daughters about matrimony. On learning that two of her girls 
were to be sent soon to America, we asked, " What do you ex- 
pect them to do there ?" 

" We hope they will get married. There is little prospect 
that they will here, young men are so poor ; and we have no 
dowries for our daughters. Besides, five hundred young men 
have gone from this town to America, and five hundred more 
would go if they had the means." 

We hardly knew what to answer, as we were well aware that 
plenty of girls were in the same anxious suspense the other side 
of the water, though they would not so frankly acknowledge it. 
But we find no fault with this frankness, and do not think the 
mothers or daughters who talk in this open way of what they 
hope and plan, are less delicate than those who, in similar cir- 
cumstances, would think it necessary to deny that they ever 



260 PEASANT LTFE IN GERMANY. 

thought of marrying, or had any wish to, knowing all the time, as 
does every one else, that they are speaking falsehood. But the 
fault is, that they are taught no other way of living. We ven- 
tured to tell them it was possible they might not get married 
there, but if they would learn music or anything else thoroughly, 
they would find no difficulty in taking care of themselves, and 
labor would not be any degradation to them. It had never 
occurred to them to fit themselves for teachers, as all the coun- 
try schools are taught by men, and a woman would be thought 
as much out of her sphere in the schoolroom as in the forum 
in Germany. We have visited many of these schools, and 
thought how infinitely better off would be the little ones with 
some gentle-hearted woman. But where more young men with 
a university education are waiting for the teacherships than 
there are places to be filled, and have no other way of earning 
their livelihood, and no practical knowledge of anything in life, 
it cannot be expected that they will allow women to become 
their rivals. 

The school system is everywhere the same, as each govern- 
ment has adopted that instituted by King Frederick William 
III., when he ordained that the people should no longer be serfs; 
and provided for their education. His intentions were evidently 
good, though there is a little inconsistency in teaching people 
to read, and then forbidding them to exercise the power when 
they have acquired it, and even this seems quite unnecessary, 
where neither books nor papers are within the means of the 
people. Had they full permission to read all they could get, 
they would be little injured by knowledge, so dear is everything 
printed in this land where printing had its birth. The present 
king of Prussia, in his premature old age and imbecility, has 
placed more restrictions upon the liberty of the press than any 



SCHOOL SYSTEM AND SCHOOL8. 261 

of his predecessors, requiring every colporteur who passes 
through his dominions to be searched, lest some opinion dispar- 
aging to tyranny should find its way among his subjects. 

The school books are as carefully pruned as the newspapers, 
from anything tainted with liberalism, and are of course very 
simple in their contents, as all the children leave school at 
the age of fourteen. Some teachers seemed eminently fitted 
for their duties, and the children well instructed in the rudi-. 
ments of arithmetic, geography, drawing, and natural history, 
which is all that is attempted. Music is taught scientifically, 
and the notes always furnished of all that is sung. But it is 
also required that sewing and knitting be taught, and the first 
hour of every afternoon a woman has charge of the school, or 
of the girls, and they are busied with every description of 
needlework. 

The discipline was very much after the old fashion of cuffing 
and knocking, and the schoolrooms small and ill ventilated. 
The children assemble at seven in the morning in summer and 
leave at eleven, and from one to three in the afternoon. They 
read in concert, and recited the multiplication table, which to 
our ears was very amusing. Zwei mat zwei rind vier. Elf mat 
zwei rind zwei und zwanzig. It seemed impossible it could be 
correct, but when we repeated it in English they laughed so 
inordinately and were so incredulous that we could only con- 
clude habit alone at fault. There is a superintendent in every 
district, who visits the schools at stated seasons, and one hap- 
pened in whilst we were present. He listened to their exercises, 
and said some pleasant word to each, exhorting them all at the 
close to diligence and obedience. Our companion at the time 
was the young girl who had been educated in America, and we 
could not help wishing she could exercise the office of teacher 



262 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

for which she showed herself so well fitted by the assistance 
and explanations she rendered those who would listen to her. 
But knowledge did not add to her usefulness or happiness in her 
fatherland. Every day some gossip came to her father to say 
how he had ruined his daughter by allowing her to study, she 
would never be a good housekeeper and never get married, and 
while she had elevated herself above the rank in which she was 
born, she still could not step out of it, and however intelligent 
or ladylike, she could not be received into one above, because 
she was lorn a peasant. Every day she wept bitterly to go back, 
where she was free to become what she chose, and where 
society allowed women so many more privileges, and placed no 
barriers in the way of any. 

The schools we visited were in Catholic districts, and once 
also a priest came in, who examined and encouraged the 
pupils to diligence with not less seeming interest than a Protest- 
ant clergymen, and in no respect that we can discover, does the 
state of education differ among those of one creed or another, 
or the intelligence of the people. 

We were present when a family in this city received a letter 
from a son and a brother, who had been some years in America, 
and having lost his wife, was urged to return to his friends. 
He said " No, never ; this is the land of my adoption and the 
land of my choice, and here I have friends whose worth you 
cannot imagine ; who have been kind to me in poverty and 
sickness, and who would be parents, brothers, aud friends to 
my children were I to die. I would not be guilty of placing 
them under the care of a G-erman schoolmaster, to suffer as I 
did when a boy. No ; this is the land of their birth, and I 
shall not take the responsibility of removing them from an 
atmosphere of freedom to one of tyranny and slavery." The 



PAPERS — EDUCATION. 263 

lady who received it said it was true the teachers were despotic 
and unfeeling ; but our inference would be that it was the 
same with them as with every other official who was not ac- 
countable to the people among whom he labored, the parents 
of the children where he taught, but to some far-off power, 
whose ear could not be reached but by emissaries, and who 
was not likely to listen to complaints against servants who 
were faithful to him and endangered not his throne. 

There is little to stimulate ambition among the peasantry. 
They do not see any particular benefit of knowledge, and care 
not to exert themselves to acquire what brings them neither 
pleasure nor other reward. It is rare to see a book of any 
kind in their houses, and few of them can afford even the little 
Zeitung, about a foot square, which the cities furnish. Fami- 
lies in the city, who indulge in many other luxuries, do not con- 
sider a paper within their means, as necessary to their intelli- 
gence ; while families of the same means, or less, in America, 
would take two or three. In southern Germany, we saw no 
children's papers, and could not learn that any existed, except 
two or three in Hamburg and Bremen. When we expressed 
our surprise at this, a lady was equally astonished that such a 
provision should be thought at all necessary for children, who 
had to go to school and study, and had no time to read. There 
are very respectable scientific and literary periodicals for the 
learned ; but nothing like a newspaper exists in the whole Con- 
federation. 

Postage is so high that few can afford to write letters, and 

paper also is beyond the reach of the poor. In England, cheap 

ge has done more than all the schools towards educating 

the people. In Germany, the police force the children into school 

against their will. In England, they are left to do as the^ 



264 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

please ; but since they experience a benefit which every day 
gladdens thousands of hearts, in the penny paper and penny 
letter, nothing more is needed to spur them to exertion which 
can prepare them to avail themselves of these blessings. 

Girls in the city leave school also at fourteen ; but after that 
time have "masters." A young lady came to board in the 
family where we were, in order to be educated. In our sim- 
plicity we asked if she were going to school ; at which the 
lady who was to have the care of her was almost insulted, and 
replied : " Young ladies do not stay in school in Germany, 
till they are married." Upon which followed quite a stormy 
debate between us, as we could not understand why it was any 
more degrading to attend school than to have "masters.' 
She said the girls in Germany learned mathematics and physics. 
I asked if she supposed they did not in America ? She said, 
to be sure, she had always heard that those who wished to 
educate their daughters in these branches, sent them to Ger- 
many ; that there were no masters capable of teaching such 
things among us. We thought of President Day, and Davies, 
and Loomis ; but our knowledge of the language was not 
equal to instructing her in the common items of newspaper 
intelligence, with which she would have been familiar, if she 
had been in the habit of reading them. But though she was 
very profound in mathematics and physics, she was very igno- 
rant of all common and practical knowledge, and really 
believed the almanac-maker could predict the weather with 
certainty. The process which the young ladies go through in 
being educated, is like everything else where there is no free- 
dom of thought and speech, and where there can be very little 
use of knowledge. It is a mechanical process, which is a great 
weariness to the flesh without sufficient compensation. 



EDUCATION OF GIRLS. 265 

A gentleman went to America to make his fortune, and 
settled in a western city. After many years, he returned to 
Germany, to educate his children, saying it was impossible in 
the United States, anywhere, to give them advantages. 
"Masters" were not to be obtained at any price, and neither 
are they in Germany, except in the cities. No family, two 
miles from any university, town or capital, could give their 
children anything more than a common school education, which 
is nowhere so good as in America, unless they have tutors in 
the family for each branch. We know a young lady who 
had at one time nine " masters," and many American girls here, 
whose tutors cost more than their board, clothes, and all other 
expenses. Yet it is possible for a family to take up their 
abode in the region of a university, and educate half a dozen 
children with less expense than could be done in America ; but 
they must live very quietly, and be content with poor lodgings 
and simple food, such as they would not be contented with in 
America. 



12 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

DIVISION OP LAND TAXES HABITS OF LIFE BRUNNEN — VILLAGE 

LIFE — SCENE AT THE BRUNNEN A MEETING AND A MARRIAGE. 

Where the land is owned in small proprietorships, the 
continual subdivisions among large families reduce them at 
length to very narrow limits, an evil, for which, however, 
there seems to be no remedy, except a return to the old 
law of inheritance, making the oldest son or child heir of 
all, to which no people will ever submit after once having 
tasted the independence which even a little lit of land confers. 

In England the land is still possessed by about six hundred 
families, while in some parts of Rhenish Prussia there are six 
thousand new divisions every year ! and the whole is divided 
into more than twelve millions of parcels, some of which con- 
tain scarcely an acre, and some only twenty rods, and are con- 
sidered large when of three hundred acres in extent. A pro- 
prietor must pay the amount of sixty dollars in taxes in order 
to be entitled to hold the office of provincial deputy, and 
scarcely five^ hundred proprietors pay this sum. Many pay not 
more than a dollar, and some parcels pay not more than a 
penny a year. Many of the landowners have not so much 
money, and live not so comtortably as those who work upon 
the large farms of England and Scotland for daily wages, yet 
they would not exchange situations. All the toil that is 

266 



DIVISION OF LAND. 267 

expended upon a potato patch is so much money at interest. 
It improves the land, which every year increases in value, and 
is a certain dependence in case of sickness or calamity. A 
much larger number can be fed and clothed from the profits of 
the same soil when owned by many than by few ; but it is 
impossible with this constant division for a few to become rich, 
or that there should be any material improvement in the condi- 
tion of the whole. They live from year to year, and from 
century to century in the same way. All are upon an equality, 
as we have seen in Norway, and there is nothing to create 
rivalry and competition. In Germany this is one great cause 
of emigration. When the father dies, and the farm must be 
divided, the share of each is so small, that one or two are 
induced to sell out to the others and seek a home in a new 
country. But to pay the money, the one who remains must 
make great sacrifices, and will not, in many years, be able to 
add comforts to his house, or improvements to his land, and 
is therefore little better off for the increase of its dimensions. 
We find, too, in low as in high life, marriages are often con- 
tracted between those whose lands join, and " How much will 
her father give her *?" is the question of the peasant as well as 
the prince when his heart is inclined towards a pretty maiden. 
Many practise self-denial, and devote their lives to the severest 
toil, in order to lay up for their daughters a dowry that shall 
tempt a husband ; otherwise they will never get married. 

Yet it often occurs that farms are sold for debt, and often that 
a drought, or hailstorm, or sickness, or fire reduces these small 
proprietors from poverty to wretchedness, and the hammer of 
the auctioneer is heard in front of a humble cot, where a bed, 
a few chairs, some kettles, a cow, and a pig are all that can be 
set in array to tempt purchasers. What becomes of those who 



268 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

are thus deprived of their little all — an all that was so little: — 
we hardly know. They disappear, and, like all the unfortunate, 
are soon forgotten. 

The taxes are nearly the same in all other parts of Germany * 
as in Prussia, and are imposed upon journeymen according to 
their earnings, and upon all trade according to the profits. 
Besides a poll-tax of one dollar upon every man — even the 
lowest day laborer — every person must have a license to open 
a shop of any kind, and also a school, and no person is allowed 
to trade or teach without permission, and must pay for the 
license. There is the tariff upon all foreign goods, of course, 
and also a tax upon all home-made — upon salt, paper, lard, 
home-made spirits, malt, home-made wine, and upon tobacco- 
leaves — a tax upon meal, and license necessary to grind it — a 
tax upon meat, and license to slaughter. One-fifth of the clear 
annual produce of the land goes to government, except in case 
of privileged nobles, who pay only one-sixth. 

The taxable population is divided into four classes : 1st, the 
large cities, which are nine in number ; 2d, small towns, which 
are 132 in number ; 3d, all towns of more thau 1,500 inhabi- 
tants ; and, 4th, all small towns and couutry. Then the people 
are divided into six classes, who pay a household tax according 
to their position, the highest four dollars, and the lowest one 
groschen. The personal tax is paid within the first three days 
of every month, and if not paid at that time, is increased. 

The meal tax includes all kinds of grain, beans, peas, etc., 
and no quantity under a hundred pounds can be ground. The 
tax upon each hundred pounds of wheat is about thirty-six 
cents, and upon the same quantity of other grain about twelve 
cents. The tax upon one hundred pounds of meat is one 

* Austria is never included when we speak of Germany, unless particularly specified 



HABITS OF LIFE. 2G9 

dollar. The tax upon trade includes all kinds of business, mer- 
chants, millers, innkeepers, ship-builders and masters, handi- 
crafts, etc. But position and preferment are not conferred 
according to success in any business. The merchant may get 
rich, but this will not bring him to any greater honor, or elevate 
his social position. He may enjoy his wealth, but his hav- 
ing shown skill and energy in one department of life, is no 
reason for elevating him to another, which would increase his 
social influence. Everything is done by the police to prevent 
the servants and lower order of mechanics and tradesmen from 
changing their calling, or in any way elevating their position, 
and all the way up it is the same. All who fill offices or hold 
government places must be educated with reference to them, 
and kept as a class apart from the people. A father who has 
sons asks them when they leave school what trade or profession 
they will follow, and when they have chosen, it is for life, how- 
ever unfit they may find themselves for the duties they may be 
called to perform. 

That there is so little advance in what pertains to comfort in 
their homes, may be partly ascribed to the habits which the 
men form in barracks, where they are all obliged to spend three 
years. They learn to practise neatness and order in some 
respects, but must live in a very coarse way, as regards per- 
sonal comfort and gratification. Their beds and tables are of 
the rudest kind, and the rness is served out to them with the 
coarsest utensils. They become accustomed to coarse, rude 
things, and when they have homes, do not feel the necessity of 
better. They have, perhaps, frequented galleries of fine arts, 
and become amateurs. They have lounged in public gardens, 
and learned to admire fine music and fine ladies, but fine arti- 
cles for their sleeping-rooms, and upon their tables and floors, 



270 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

they do not miss themselves, and their families do not, of course, 
having never been provided with them. 

The cafes, where the gentlemen meet to smoke and talk 
about business, are usually very handsome in cities, and the 
railroad depots and all public buildings are on a grand and com- 
modious scale, and though we have philosophized upon it so 
much, we still marvel and wonder how they can consider these 
so necessary, and be so content with the dark alleys and stair- 
cases, and bare walls of their own domiciles. 

Another reason why they remain from century to century the 
same is, that they go so little abroad. All summer they 
migrate from watering-place to watering-place within their 
own borders, where they see nothing new. Those of the north 
find their own houses and way of living much in advance of 
those of the south, and from the Rhine to the Volga there is 
little variation. Those who compose the court circle in every 
principality are a class by themselves, and no degree of wealth 
or merit entitles one to be admitted within its precincts. There 
is nothing to excite the ambition of those below to become in 
manners or style of living like those above, as the barrier is 
impassable which separates them. But an English author says 
the manners of the nobility are in no respect superior to those 
of the bourgeois. It is impossible to tell a lordly baron from a 
dealer in merchandise, whom he despises, by anything in his 
conversation or deportment. His instincts are no more refined, 
and in the gratification of his daily wants he exhibits no higher 
standard of taste than those several grades below him, accord- 
ing to society's definitions of rank and titles. 

Thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars had been 
spent in Berlin upon architecture and art before they thought 
to have aqueducts and sewers, so that beneath these fine statues 



BEUNNEN. 271 

and palace windows were continually running most filthy and 
offensive streams, over which an Englishman wonders that even 
men of bronze and marble do not hold their noses. It is only 
within four or five years that this nuisance has been removed, 
and not till long after the Croton aqueduct had brought the 
blessed fountain to every house in New York. Which is, on the 
whole, the noblest work of art, a statue or an aqueduct ? But 
in all the country villages of southern Germany there is the 
most generous provision for cleanliness in the ever-running 
streams of water. The Brunnens — they will linger forever 
among our pleasantest associations with country life in Germany. 

It was in the early golden autumn days that we found our- 
selves in a little inn of one of the most beautiful of the rural 
districts of the Duchy of Nassau. The first sound that greeted 
our ears was the music of the running water, mingled with the 
happy voices of children, the que-qua of ducks, the squawling 
of geese, and the lowing of kine. We looked out, and there it 
was, indeed, the Brunnen, which has been immortalized by 
Goethe, and serves for warp and woof of a thousaud stories 
for those who weave romances from real life among the rural 
scenes of their fatherland. 

There is first, a great reddish brown stone reservoir with 
two large stone troughs, extending from each side, full of clear 
water. From the centre rises a large square pillar, from the 
front of which proceeds the stream, never ceasing in its flow, 
and several inches in circumference, which falls into the basin 
below, and makes the only music perhaps of which the ear 
never tires. From grooves at the ends of the troughs the 
superfluous supply is carried off, and finds its way into neatly 
paved drains upon each side of the street, which we can trace 
for half a mile, when the streams are lost in a running broofr 



272 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMAN V. 

that winds in a silver thread through green fields and luxuriant 
gardens. 

It was noon when we first cast a hasty glance upon the 
scene, and then, as every day afterwards, the cows were driven 
down to drink, the oxen and the horses came from the field 
and slaked their thirst in the crystal fountain, the maidens 
came to fill their pitchers, and the children stopped to splash 
their naked feet upon the stones. We can never forget the ex- 
hilaration which thrilled us as we looked upon this village scene. 

The village itself is far from pretty, having been built in 
those dark days when everything was dingy and dark. The 
houses standing close together, and close to the streets which 
are narrow and gloomy, with miserable rough pavements, that 
give you the feeling that you are walking upon thorns, and are 
every moment liable to a misstep which may send you head- 
long. But we are quite inclined to forgive the stupid people 
who built the houses and made the pavements, having seen the 
Brunnens, and enjoyed the beauty of the fields and lanes. 
Here we are reminded of New England, and in many a valley, 
and upon many a hill-top might easily imagine ourselves at 
home ! Oh, how beautiful ! It is the time of the utmost per- 
fection of every thing in nature, and before even a leaf or green 
blade is tinged with the symptoms of decay. The principal 
features of rural life must be everywhere the same. The fields 
must be ploughed, the seed must be sown, the harvests 
gathered wherever " oats, peas, beans and barley grow." 

" The mower whets his scythe, 
And the milkmaid singeth blithe," 

and the " cow-boy whistles as he goes," very much in the old 
world as in the new. But — 



VILLAGE LIFE. 273 

" The little boy that tends the sheep 
Under the hay-cock fast asleep," 

is not to be found just here, though far to the north and far to 
the south, we have seen even him, for in those parts may be 
still found large tracts devoted entirely to graziug, and the 
little boys and girls who attend school in the autumn and win- 
ter, go forth in the summer with the shepherd'.s crook, and 
wander all the day among the hills. Here are no lowing kine 
or bleating sheep, because it is more profitable to keep them in 
the stalls. But there is the ploughman plodding wearily on 
his way, and more wearily we think, that his plough is a cum- 
bersome thing, and the carts jumble and rattle over the stony 
street in a more lumbering fashion, because they are heavy 
and unwieldy in their construction, and the hoes and shovels 
must be of themselves a weight. What a curious sight to see 
women with these implements upon their shoulders, or goad- 
stick in hand, calling "haw buck, and gee hci," for we presume 
these terms " like love and beef-steak, are the same in all 
languages." They are in costume, too ; but what a costume ! 
a petticoat, and shirt with short sleeves, with suspenders across 
the back — no stockings, shoes or coiffure. # This is their every- 
day working gear. On Sunday morning they may all be seen 
wending their way to the village church, in a neat dress, which 
partakes more of Parisian fashions, and a pretty shawl, with 
the prayer-book in their hands ; some with bonnets and some 
without. There is something of the quiet air of a New England 
Sabbath, though nowhere in Germany is it recognized as holy 
time after morning service. 

The chimes of this village church ring through the welkin 
with a peculiar sweetness, and we afterwards heard were 
scarcely equalled by those of any cathedral. ' We heard them 

12* 



274 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

first when roving far away in the valley, on Saturday evening, 
when the sound of the mill-wheel was hushed, aud the " tired 
laborer hied him home," when the birds had ceased their war- 
bling, and no other living sound broke upon the stillness. Our 
companion that evening, was a youug Catholic girl of the village, 
and at the first note of their solemn peal, she knelt down and 
crossed herself, and this did every one whom we saw, whilst 
they were ringing. Neither religion nor education prompted 
us to a similar manifestation of devotion, but there came upon 
our spirits a softer tone, and a thousand sweet associations came 
springing up to give mellowness to our feelings, and " bid the 
silent tear to flow." Yet — ■ 

" It is not grief that bids me moan, 
It is that I am all alone." 

On Saturday afternoon, the children who are " let loose from 
school," or rather the little girls, are employed in cleaning the 
streets, and before sunset they are all neatly swept, the stones 
around the Brunnen are newly washed, and the Sabbath rest 
has already commenced. Early in the morning we hear again 
the chimes, and when we look forth there is no sign of toil ; but 
a well-dressed, quiet throng, going up to the house of God. 
Again at eleven they answer the same summons, and a few go 
again in the afternoon ; but this is not required. It is a holi- 
day, and walking, riding, and paying visits, are among its privi- 
leges ; but though we have walked the whole circle of the vil- 
lage, and rode many miles in the surrounding country, we have 
seen nothing that is offensive. In some hall or hut, we doubt not, 
there is a village dance, which on Sunday or other day, would 
strike us as revolting ; but we must enter in order to be trou- 
bled by it. In this little town of perhaps two thousand in- 



SCENE AT THE BRUNNEN. 275 

habitants, there are also four public gardens, where are seats 
and tables, and in the house adjoining, wine and beer for those 
who wish to buy. Mauy assemble here to drink and talk ; but 
all is orderly, and a few are strolling through the fields. But 
we hear no sound of mirth or revelry, and all have a decent re- 
respectable look, that inclines us to class them above the lower 
orders of peasantry to be found in many other places. Some 
rf the new houses in the suburbs have something of the plea- 
sant cottage air, which is seen among the German population 
of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. But, however old and dingy 
the habitation, flowers may be seen blooming in every window, 
and in every room there will hang rude pictures, gaudy with 
the bright red and yellow tints, which please the eyes of 
children. 

How soothing is this Sabbath stillness ! How sweet the 
rest and leisure to the weary. 

On Monday morning, the first sound that greets our ear is 
the blacksmith's hammer. The day has scarcely dawned, and 
we look out to see how a little village in Germany wakes up. 
It is not long before the hay-makers and harvesters are out, the 
mill-wheel is splashing in the stream, the geese come waddling 
to the rill, and all is busy life and bustle again. All day it is 
one continuous throng of women to the Brunnen. They come to 
fill their krugs or jugs, which are of stone, and large enough to 
hold a gallon or two — sometimes with large tubs of vegetables 
to wash, especially great quantities of lettuce and cresses, which 
are soused in the troughs, and rinsed a dozen times without 
reference to the quantity of water, where it is furnished by a 
stream that might turn a mill, and sometimes they wash them- 
selves, and the little ones, with round, red rosy cheeks, that 
waddle along holding by the mother's apron. Often she carries 



276 PEASANT LIFE LN GERMANY. 

an infant in her arms, a pail of water upon her head, and has two 
balancing themselves by her dress. We have won the glances 
of a bright-eyed little boy by dropping him a kreutztr, and the 
mother gives us a friendly greeting, being flattered like all 
mothers, by the preference we bestow upon those she loves bet- 
ter than herself. What a place for gossip, what a retailing of 
all the news and scandal a village can furnish, as they meet, 
sometimes two and sometimes twenty, every half hour. How 
well we understand the pictures of the poem, and the romance 
as they whisper, and hush, and look slily round. Goethe had 
looked upon just such a scene when he wrote those lines in 
Faust, where two girls met to fill their krugs, and one who 
needs no evil tongue to ' sting her heart, and make her blush 
for shame, is accosted by the other with a look and word that 
are like the dagger's point : 

" Lieschen — ' Hast thou heard nothing about Barbelchen ?' 
" Gretchen — ' Not a word : I go so little out of doors.' 
"Lieschen — "Tis fact; Sybilla told it to me herself to-day. She's 
played the fool at last, and so end all her fine lady airs." 

It was to just such village beauties that Goethe himself 
professed the love he did not feel, and made the vows he never 
meant to keep. 

What a rendezvous it is for lovers, too, so well they can 
plan a meeting, speak in low accents what the splashing krug 
shall drown to other ears, and steal away 

" As light of wing and gay of heart 
As Eden's garden bird." 

A.t noon, as we said before, the cows are driven down to 
drink, and the laborers return from the field, one and all stop- 
ping to get a draught, or to perform their ablutions at the 



A MEETING. 277 

fountain. The water itself is like silk or velvet to the skin, 
and gives a clear hue to the complexion, and is also sweet to 
the taste. We cannot learn who supplied these aqueducts, and 
have no idea how long they have flowed, but it was some good 
genius that thought to bestow such a blessing on the poor. 
Brunnen masters are appointed in every village to see that 
they are kept in order, and at certain times they are cleaned, 
and new overseers take the place of the old. Then there is a 
feast, for which the children go through the village and collect 
eggs, which they lay upon green leaves, in a basket ornamented 
with field flowers, till evening, when they are roasted, and a 
great supper is given. 

It was by this same Brunnen that we stood with the young 
peasant girl who had been our companion in all our summer 
journeyings, when a young man happened to stop there, too, 
for a glass of nature's nectar. We were speaking English 
without a thought that he would understand us, when a smile 
betrayed that it was no strange language to his ears. His 
answer to our inquiry revealed that he, too, had been in 
America. 

" And why have you come back ?" we asked. 

" Come back to get a wife," he said. 

"But could you not find such a commodity in America, 
that you must come so far and spend so much!, money to 
obtain it ?" 

" Yes ; but I wish to be sure that she is respectable, and we 
never know what those may be whom we find there. I cannot 
tell what sort of home they will make till I know what sort of 
home they have left." 

And so we learned that he had been seven years on a west- 
ern prairie, to which he went a penniless youth, and became 



278 PEASANT LIFE IN GEEMANT. 

able to spend several hundred dollars in returning to the land 
of his birth to gladden an aged father before he should lay his 
head in the grave, and awake the voice of gladness in the cot 
of his youth, before it should be made quite desolate by the 
grim messenger before whose ruthless scythe all men must fall. 

But here he had been three months and had not yet found a 
wife. " There were not so many pretty girls," he said, " at 
the Brunnen now a-days as there were before he went away." 
But we could not help thinking the change was owing to the 
different ideas of beauty which he had formed, and as they ap- 
peared in their working dresses, and went through the dusty 
street with the water dripping from their heads to their feet, 
he could not believe a " neat handed Phillis " could be found 
among them, though in his boyhood, at the Brunnen or in the 
village dance, they had seemed only bright-eyed and merry- 
hearted maidens, to whom his boyish love made no objection. 

But now he was no longer a peasant boy nor a peasant man, 
but a citizen of a Republic, where he could become a man of 
wealth and influence, and no one would ask in what rank he 
had his birth. His ambition had evidently experienced a little 
of the mushroom growth which would be natural from a 
sudden transition to freedom, and a wide field of hope and 
promise, but it was evident that the spirit of young America 
had been infused into the sluggish blood of the German youth, 
and industry and energy would not fail to obtain what he had 
learned were their sure reward on prairie soil. 

But I began to think, from the stolen glances of a pair of 
dark eyes, that I was in some danger of seeing my little maiden 
transported, and with a friendly invitation that he would call 
and see me before he returned to my fatherland, I said good 
bye. 



A MARRIAGE. 279 

Not long after we had returned to the city, he fulfilled his 
promise, but we were not flattered with hearing that my polite- 
ness had given him courage to come. We had not mistaken 
the purport of those glances, and now he would know if there 
was any reason why he should not win the heart of the " blue- 
eyed Mary," whom he had concluded would make exactly the wife 
he had come so far to find. It was a conclusion which did him 
no evil in our eyes, and we could not deny that he had used 
his eyes to very good purpose. Our selfish interests would have 
prompted us to bid him go elsewhere ; but as we had often 
thought ourselves, what a nice, thrifty little housewife she 
would make, if transplanted to some vine-trellised American 
cottage, and what a bright blooming flower she would be her- 
self in an atmosphere of freedom, we could not be guilty of 
saying "nay," though it would be the greatest affliction we 
could experience in a strange land. She was pretty, with the 
bright fresh hue of innocence and health, and three years in 
England, and three years in an American family, where she 
had experienced the kindness of friends, had developed her in- 
telligence beyond that of many a fine lady, and in no bred and 
born lady did we ever meet more refined and delicate instincts. 
During days and weeks of daily intercourse we had found her a 
companion invaluable for what she could tell us of her people, 
and to be trusted to any extent with untold gold. We had, 
therefore, only to say, she was worthy the love of any prince 
of the land, and still we knew that in her own she must ever 
remain a peasant. If he could prove his title to claim so pre- 
cious a jewel, to be intrusted to him and him alone, a thousand 
miles away, he was at liberty to try his skill in winning her 
love. The days of courtship we will pass by, though it was not 
the least among our unexpected pleasures to share the confi- 



280 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

dence of two young loving hearts, and be admitted to all their 
secret counsels while passiug the happy seasoa of preparation. 

The betrothal took place in the peasant father's home, where 
we saw him place his hand upon the youthful heads and give 
them his hearty blessing, and for the wedding we assembled in 
the salon of an American consul, who performed the ceremony, 
as the American law requires, in considering it a civi] contract, 
when a clergyman of the independent Lutheran church joined 
them in holy matrimony, as is customary, in consideration of 
its being a religious bond. A pleasant party of many who 
knew and loved her, assembled to offer their congratulations, 
and present some testimonial which should secure her a welcome 
in the "land she was going to." 

No peasant girl would think herself lawfully married without 
a wedding dress, a wreath, a dance, and a feast. Our little 
apple-blossom bride appeared in a cloud of white muslin which 
might have graced a princess, and for the dance they repaired 
to their village home. After a few festal days, which were cele- 
brated in true German country fashion, we saw them on the 
ship which was to bear them to "loved New England's shores," 
and wa\ed a last adieu to all we had then learned to love 
among a strange people, feeling with the bitterness of the first 
pang, what it was to be alone. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE BLACK FOREST — POSTILLIONS FARM-HOUSES FOOD WOMEN 

AND COWS WINDMILLS A GERMAN YANKEE PORCELAIN 

STOVES A MOTHER, BUT NOT MARRIED BRAIDING STRAW 

CLOCKS THE TAX-GATHERER INNS BOARDING-HOUSES. 

Twenty years ago, when Howitt wrote his " Rural life in 
Germany," in describing his trip to the Black Forest he says : 
" Oar postillion wore a light yellow jacket, cut like a foot 
soldier's coat, turned up with red, and the seams corded with 
red. Under the left arm he carried a horn, and at his back the 
tassels of the horn-belt stood out like two great cauliflowers 
dipped in red dye, which go surging and bobbing in corres- 
pondence with the motion of the carriage. When it is wet or 
cold he put on a great coat, but the cauliflowers are pulled 
up and stick out at the back of the neck. • His boots are a part 
of his trousers, the leather commencing about half way between 
the thigh and knee — a black glazed hat with broad white brim 
and a heavy whip completes the costume.' 7 

One cold foggy morning, we hastened at an early hour to the 
station at Freiburg, and entered exactly such an Eilwagen as 
he also describes, which is a narrow oblong coach, hung high in 
the air, with black leather top and yellow wooden bottom, 
divided into two compartments as entirely distinct as if they 
belonged to separate carriages, in the first of which are seats 
for four, and in the second for two, with no means of communi- 

281 



282 PEASANT LIFE EST GERMAN*. 

cation between. The fog was so dense that we did not at first 
see the postillion, or anything else three feet from the window, 
but when a long -hill obliged him to descend from his " high 
estate," there he was, to be sure, with his yellow coat and cauli- 
flowers, exactly as he had been for half a century, and perhaps 
for a century and a half, or ever since the Thirty Years War. 
The mass of flesh and blood within must now and then be re- 
newed, and in this case it could not have been long since there 
was a change, as the youthful, chubby face indicated a form 
which had not been many years in such harness. But the pos- 
tillion has an identity distinct from the man, and the coachmen 
as a class have so marked a physiognomy, and a uniform exactly 
to correspond, that we have never been able to distinguish one 
from another, or call any man by his name. When one dies, 
another takes his place, wears the same coat and hat, and cracks 
his whip with the same gusto. And these whips make exactly 
the same music, whether flourished in Prussia or Bavaria, on 
the Rhine or the Danube, by one hand or another. 

What the country was through which we were passing it was 
impossible to tell for many miles, so closely was the misty cur- 
tain drawn before our eyes. But we knew from the books of 
a hundred tourists that we were in the Holknthal, or Valley of 
Hell, as we enter it immediately after leaving Freiburg, where 
it is a wide plain bordered with gentle hill-slopes covered with 
vineyards, and arrive through it upon the banks of the Dreysam, 
a small but pretty stream which plays a thousand freaks as it 
coquettes with the wild flowers that bloom to the very edge of 
the water, upon the greensward, and sputters and frets in pre- 
tentious anger as it bounds over the moss-grown rocks that 
impede its course. 

The curtain was lifted just as the scene in its wildest grand- 



THE BLACK FOREST. 283 

eur broke upon our view, and never did we come so near going 
wild ourselves. How many a story of genii and giant, ghost 
and hobgoblin, sage and seer had we read, the actors whereof 
dwelt in this same valley, and had for their haunts the recesses 
of the Black Forest. In our childhood, the idea had possessed 
us that the people were also black, and were given only to dark 
and terrible deeds, and we are not sure that we had entirely 
overcome our fears in venturing among them. At its termina- 
tion the valley becomes very narrow, and then pile on pile rise 
the rocky heights, covered with a verdure that is indeed black, 
though it is mostly of the fir tree, and so thickly the branches 
are interwoven, that it seems impossible that a bird can find 
his way in and out. Yet we heard many a clear note that 
assured us of their freedom and of their happiness, but we could 
well believe any tale of robber, thief, or murderer that took 
refuge in so impenetrable a forest. But now the clearings have 
broken the spell of the darkness and solitude that reigned so 
long, and the farm-house and the harvest field that from dis- 
tance to distance lie scattered among the hills, relieve one of 
all terror, though there are still miles and miles of wilderness, 
and the mountain gorge frowns not less wildly beneath the thick 
masses of sombre foliage, that cling in tufts along its summit. 
Though we do at length find ourselves at an incredible height, 
we can scarcely be said to have ascended, for the road winds 
round and round till it forms three terraces, one above another, 
making the rise so gradual that we should have no idea of the 
dizzy precipices we have passed if we could not look down upon 
them when safely arrived at the top. Here they call it the 
" Kingdom of Heaven," or Himmelreich, though we do not see 
any particular indications of its being a heavenly region, 
but we have certainly struggled through a long narrow way, 
though it was not straight, in order to reach it, and may well 



284 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

rejoice that we are safe. Far away we see the peaceful lake of 
Titisee, into which the Dreysam flows, upon which the now cloud- 
less sun is shedding a flood of golden light, and soon begin again 
to descend, though not to any great depth. Oct destination is 
a little village in the heart of the Black Forest, and here we 
soon find ourselves quite at home among the happy villagers, 
and where the surrounding country reminds us of the farming 
districts of many parts of New Hampshire . In the village the 
houses are scattered about here and there without regularity, 
and most of them are very neat looking; some are cottages two 
or three stories high, and with green blinds to the windows. To 
each is attached a garden or greensward, and everything indi- 
cates the thriving and comfortable condition of the inhabitants. 

The farm-houses are built like those in Norway and Switzer- 
land, a balcony miming all around under the projecting roof, 
which has very steep sides, and is thatched. The miniature 
representations carved in wood, which find their way to Amer- 
ica among the toys for children, are correct as far as the form 
is concerned, but time, and wind, and weather, have sadly 
changed the real domicile, which is almost black ; the balcony 
is filled with all manner of old trumpery, the manure yard blocks 
up one side, and the wood yard the other, and the upper room 
beneath the roof is filled with smoke, which escapes slowly 
through little apertures at the sides. In this room are hung 
the beef and hams to be cured, the peculiar construction being 
for this purpose. Here they are spinning wool from a distaff, 
as linen is spun, and this is the only kind of wheel they use 
for any purpose in southern Germany, Switzerland and Italy. 
But they cannot reel off a fourth part as much in the same 
time as from the great wheel used in New England. 

Here we shall be offered nothing but bonny-clabber for break- 
fast, and at ten o'clock, if we wish for lunch, we may have black 



FOOD CHURNS COWS AND WOMEN. 285 

bread and potatoes, of which all partake. To do the work of 
the field and the house there are four men and four maidens, 
but though the maidens help the men everywhere, we never 
see the men assisting in any household work, never saw a 
man carry a pail of water, or make any burden lighter for those 
who have to work out doors and in, day and night. 

But the farmers in this region are only peasantry,- and not at 
all like some who may be found far to the north, with intelli- 
gence and refinement. At dinner we have pork and potatoes, 
at four o'clock potatoes and coffee, and for the last meal in the 
evening potatoes and milk. The only cheese we have seen made 
in Germany is the little round ball in the palm of the hand, 
of sour milk, which is known in America as Dutch cheese, and 
made now and then as a curiosity. They cannot afford sweet 
milk for cheese, but the butter is much more yellow and sweet, 
than in Nassau and Darmstadt, where it is white and never 
salted. Nowhere in city or country, in middle Germany, did 
the butter seem palatable, but always thin and insipid. But 
among the grazing districts of the north, it has the genuine 
golden hue, and rich taste ; and here also, where the cows are 
allowed to wander over the hills. But Swiss and English cheese 
are everywhere to be purchased of ample proportions, green, 
yellow, and variegated. 

The old-fashioned dash churn and the barrel churn, exactly like 
those used in New England, are everywhere, from north to south, 
and east to west. A hundred times we have seen some Frau or 
Madchen turning or splashing the dash on some back piazza or 
in the yard, as we have seen a hundred times in New England. 
The butter is worked upon a board with a wooden spoon, and 
made into balls, and no difference can we discern in shape and 
dimensions from those from which we have cut slices all our 



286 PEASANT LIFE TN GERMANY. 

life; so we conclude there is an instinct in butter-making, as in 
many other things, which we find the same the world over, 
however widely apart may be the hands by which it is spatted 
and pressed ! 

In Eussia and all middle Germany cows are yoked to draw 
the plough and the cart, as oxen and horses are elsewhere. 
The yoke is fitted to their foreheads, and with their heads all 
labor is performed. We alluded to this peculiarity to a young- 
peasant, who said, " Yes, cows and women have to do a good 
deal with their heads in this country ;" and these two facts led 
a lady to exclaim, " she should "not like to be a cow or a wo- 
man in Germany." But in the southern part the cow is treated 
more like a fine lady, and chews her cud leisurely in the field 
or at the stall. 

Upon this farm are 14 oxen, 12 cows, 2 horses, 6 sheep, 4 
hogs, 8 pigs, and 8 hens, besides 11 yearlings. There are also 
five goats and several rabbits, which run about freely with the 
chickens. 

As we enter Germany from the north, the first curious object 
that meets the eye is the picturesque windmill, with its long 
network wings, that are adjusted to the different points of the 
compass, according to which way the wind blows, and turn the 
little wheels within that grind the corn and sift the nicil. 
They do not accomplish so much as those which go by ste-dm 
or " water-power," but one may hope they will be left to the 
landscape when a more modern apparatus for making flour has 
taken their place. But in the interior the mills are after the 
most approved American models, as this was found necessary, 
in order to compete with England in the manufacture of this 
article, and we see therefore in the rural districts large, sub- 
stantial brick edifices, with all modern improvements for the 



A GERMAN YANKEE. 287 

miller's business. Further south the old-fashioned watermill is 
still perched upon every little cascade with its companion the 
sawmill, which may often be seen from the road converting the 
tall trees of the forest into " building materials," and making- 
sad havoc with the " monarchs of the wood." 

Very little wheat is raised, though we cannot tell why, as 
the bread of wheat flour is no dearer than that of rye, and both 
only from two to three cents a pound. Potatoes are eight 
cents a bushel, and apples ten and twelve. But they know 
nothing about good apples in Germany, though they will not 
believe it ; yet where they have such delicious grapes, pears, 
peaches, and pomegranates, we do not see any particular neces- 
sity for their claiming also the best apples. 

Coffee is eighteen cents a pound, and sugar twenty-two ; yet, 
if we enter a peasant's cot, they will offer us a cup strong as 
lye, and feel hurt if we refuse. Among all the villages in this 
region the women are employed in braiding straw, and also in 
making and polishing different parts of the clocks and watches 
for which the Black Forest is so famous. We had not ex- 
pected to hear a word of English here, but we are scarcely 
seated by one of those great porcelain stoves when an old gen- 
tleman accosts us in our native tongue, which he speaks very 
well. We ask him how he learned it, and he said, in true 
Yankee parlance, " When I was a young man I went to England, 
you know, with a lot of clocks and watches to sell ; you know 
we only partly finish them here ; then, you know, one goes and 
sets up in London, where we put 'em together, you know, and 
sell 'em." If an Englishman had heard our colloquy he would 
have been greatly horrified, and quite sure nothing but a Yan- 
kee ever talked that way ; yet this murderer of the king's Eng- 
lish had never before looked upon an American. We have the 



288 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

honor always to be taken for an English lady ourselves, and 
though we are particular to give our residence as America, not 
being at all ashamed of the land of our birth, yet they will 
often set it down as England. But it is a little gratifying that 
the twang does not betray us ! We were amused, sure enough, 
to hear it in all its force from a German, who spent six years 
in England, where they profess never to admit their noses into 
partnership with their tongues when talking. This is done 
only in Connecticut and Vermont ! 

What curious objects are these great porcelain stoves, some 
white, some cream color, and some blue ! When we first saw 
them in hotels, by the way, we thought they were movable 
closets for china and other table furniture. In the room where 
they stand there is no sign of fire or door for wood or coal, but 
they are adjusted to the wall, and open into the hall, so that 
the same chimney serves for the necessary masonry of any 
number of stories. We have seen them in palaces twelve feet 
high, prettily ornamented, and furnished with shelves and 
niches for statues and knicknacks. This one before which we 
sit is six or eight feet high, and raised a foot from the floor to 
allow space beneath for an aviary, which contains some twenty 
or thirty canary birds, who have a warm and equal tempera- 
ture, and hop about as merry as if in their own sunny clime. 
There are also two or three cages in different parts of the room, 
with smaller families of the same genus, all being raised for the 
market. If we enter any twenty houses at random we shall 
see the same.* 

The stoves are made in different pieces, and baked like other 
articles of potter's clay, and then cemented together. When 
whole they are veneered with a fine compound, and painted. 

* In all Southern Germany the raising of canary birds to sell is a great business. 



A MOTHER, BUT NOT MARRIED. 289 

We saw them in their embryo state, in company with all man- 
ner of pots and pans, in the raw material, placed over a slow 
fire that will require a week to harden them. The expense of 
the cheapest is about twenty dollars, and of the finest, forty, 
fifty, and sixty. Cooking stoves are sometimes made of them, 
and give a very neat appearance to the kitchen. When once 
thoroughly warmed, they remain so half a day, and do not re- 
quire such constant attention as those of iron, and give a more 
agreeable atmosphere. 

On the floor by the stove, a little child is playing, and we 
ask a pretty looking young woman if it is hers. She says 
"Yes," and looks as gladsome as any young mother with her 
first-born. A little while afterward our young companion asks 
for her husband. " Oh," she said, " I have none." 

"But I understood this was your child ?" 

"Yes, it is, but I have no husband." 

There was nothing more to be said, of course, but the little 
one seemed to be the pet of all, and grandfather and grand- 
mother fondled and kissed it as affectionately as if a golden 
ring glistened upon the finger of their daughter. When the 
young girl who was with us had become familiar with them, 
they told her that a few years ago, when a maiden thus be- 
came a mother, she was obliged to have a paper pinned to her 
back, and to stand on the church doorsteps whilst all the peo- 
ple passed in, then to take her seat apart from the congrega- 
tion, whilst the priest reproved her. The fashion of wearing 
the hair, as in Scotland, is different among the married and un- 
married. Virgins have it in long braids down behind, but the 
married woman fastens it beneath a coquettish little cap, which 
is made of embroidered silk, or cloth of gold and silver, and 
•worn upon the back of the head with pendant ribbons a yard 



290 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

long. A mother must assume the cap, whether she be wife or 
not, and to deepen her shame, the priest sometimes obliges her 
for many weeks to wear straw braided in her hair. Some pun- 
ishment that all could see was inflicted upon many other kinds 
of offenders, it being the decree of the Church. But these cus- 
toms are becoming obsolete. It was never evident that such 
punishments deterred from sin. 

We heard here for the first time the "Wohl lekomrrfs — 1 
wish thee well," which the author of " Home Life " mentions as 
having greeted his ears on the shores of the Baltic, when he 
happened to sneeze, and afterwards were often favored with the 
same salutation when experiencing the same affliction. Instead 
of good morning and good evening, they say, " God greet you," 
and the shaking of hands is the same everywhere. We often 
see husbands and wives bid each other good night in the same 
fashion when leaving the company, and when we all meet in 
the morning the greeting is the same. If we ask for a pin, 
when it is handed us we must smile, or some evil will follow. 
We were one day sitting quietly at our work when the servant 
ran in, saying, "Madam, did you call?" "No." "Oh, what 
will become of me !" she cried ; "I have heard the death call 
— I have heard the death call !" and with her hair streaming 
down her face and neck, she ran wildly about, proclaiming that 
she should die — she had heard the death call. We afterwards 
learned that it was a common superstition, that if one heard or 
imagined he heard a voice, he was sues it was the angel of 
death summoning him to judgment. But this we have heard on 
the coast of Cape Cod, and many others of a similar kind. 

It is rye straw of which hats and bonnets are made, and it 
is bleached by being exposed to the dews of night for a fort- 
night ; but it must be carefully watched, as rain will ruin it. 



BRAIDING STRAW CLOCKS. 291 

When ready for use it is carried to a great room, where it is 
sorted, and cut for braiding. Only a few are employed in the 
factory, as those who braid and sew take home the straw, and 
receive so much a yard when they return it. One girl can 
braid twenty yards a day, and earns eight cents. When they 
are sewed they are thrown into a great cauldron and boiled ; 
and if to be colored, are boiled in the dye — afterwards dried 
and ironed, which is done by men. In the room where they 
hang to dry, I could not have breathed ten minutes, for the 
steam and heat, and felt a severe pressure on the lungs for a 
day or two, though I remained not more than a minute ; yet 
here those who attend them stay, from seven till twelve, and 
from two till six. In the great store-rooms they are piled by 
the hundreds of dozens, according to their degrees of fineness, 
and there are also boxes of the most beautiful straw flowers 
of all colors and varieties, delicate wreaths and bouquets 
wrought by these same peasant girls. The leghorn hats are 
braided in Italy, and sent here to be sewed and shaped. But 
the form in winch they are transported to the milliners' shops 
of every country, is exactly that of the sugar-shovel of the 
Quakers, from which they are fashioned a la mode. Some of 
the finest Florence braids worth thirty and forty dollars in the 
manufactory. What will they be when they get across the 
Atlantic, and who will be willing to pay such a price ? As 
with flax, the straw in order to be of the right consistency, 
must be cut before it is ripe, as then it would be too dry, and 
break. The crop is therefore good for nothing but for the 
straw-dealers, and must monopolize a great surface of the 
earth. 

Clocks are cheap and plenty in Germany. Here, where they 
are made, a good time-keeper may be bought for two dollars. 



292 PEASANT LIFE EST GERMANY. 

But there are also many nice ones with Parisian bronze, gilt, 
and marble stands, and glass covers, that are expensive. Each 
person makes a separate part, and all the mechanism is finished 
in four or five days. From this one factory two hundred and 
fifty are sent every month, and they have more orders than 
they can supply in three years. 

We everywhere hear the people of the Black Forest spoken 
of as " good," by which is meant that they are kind-hearted, 
well-meaning, and honest people, which was verified by all the 
observations we made among them. The owners of the straw 
and clock factories, reside in the village as a kind of gentry, 
and live like the mercantile class, in their families. There is a 
reading-room in the inn, with a goodly number of German 
Zeitungs, and scientific publications. Two or three persons 
speak English, and many speak French. The priest and some 
of the men of higher intelligence meet every evening to prac- 
tise in these languages, and talk of what is going on in the 
World. We have never seen any indication that the Catholic 
clergy of Germany discourage intellectual cultivation, although 
the governments are in no wise anxious to have their people be- 
come enlightened. 

The villages included in the Black Forest, belong to the 
Puke of Baden, and he supports the clergy, instead of their 
receiving, as formerly, a certain sum by direct taxation of the 
people. The tax-gatherer arrived whilst we were there, and 
sitting at a table in the inn, with a great book, in which were 
written all their names, open before him, the people came and 
paid the money, saw it credited to their account and departed. 
He looked as if he had collected taxes all his life, and probably 
had. His eyes were as cold, and his face as hard as the 
Gulden he looked on with so much indifference. Not a muscle 



INNS, AND FAKE. 293 

of his face moved from the time he came with empty coffers, 
until he trudged away with some ten thousand dollars under 
his arm. Every one was ready with his money, and during the 
hours of business, they came and went, looking sometimes sor- 
rowfully, but without hesitation, till the last dollar was de- 
posited, and not a word did we hear during all the three days, 
except when each one spoke the name to which- he was to 
credit the amount. We thought, " kings are men of wondrous 
power as well as wondrous riches." 

It is so seldom that a lady of any nation alights in such a place, 
that whoever finds herself the exception to this rule, is looked 
upon as an object of wonder, if not admiration, in all the 
country round. At the principal inn, we found much difficulty 
in obtaining bed and board. They could not understand how 
a lady could be traveling for any good purpose, though on all 
the thoroughfares in Germany, or anywhere else in Europe, a 
lady with only her servant may be seen every day, and it is 
quite as conventional as to have a baggage-master. But we 
insisted that we must stay, and they must accommodate us. So, 
after a solemn conclave had been held, and long deliberations, 
they concluded to allow us ; and in no other place, in a hotel, 
city, or country, had we so good rooms, so good food, so kind 
attentions at so reasonable a rate. The " lady of the house " 
was a peasant-bred woman ; but dignified and lady-like, and 
her husband a refined and gentlemanly man. Neither they 
nor their children could be guilty of anything coarse or rude, or 
unfriendly, any more than knight or princess. We dined every 
day at the public table, and before we left had visible proof of 
the influence of a lady's presence amoug gentlemen, or un- 
cultivated men. Their toilettes and deportment were essen« 
tially modified, and could all the inns of Germany be modified, 



294 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

or rather modernfied, and provided with ladies' salons, where 
smoking was not allowed, and conversation made both com- 
mon and proper, gentlemen would soon lose their boorish 
renown, and learn to look upon women as companions and 
helpmeets in something besides eating and drinking. 

At no place said we farewell with more regret, or heard a 
more cordial " God bless you," when we departed. 

The whole system of inns in Germany is disagreeable for the 
traveler. Everything is done by the piece, and thus it is im- 
possible to know beforehand what a week or a month will cost, 
for, in a strange land you cannot be acquainted with market- 
prices, and will be as likely to order the dearest as the cheapest 
food. This also varies greatly in different places. But every- 
where in the country, comfortable rooms and board are much 
dearer than in the country in America — much dearer, too, in 
the cities than in the cities of the same size at home. People 
who study economy can live as cheap in one place as another, 
and we know families who live more comfortably in New York, 
even, on eight hundred or a thousand dollars, than any family 
can live in Germany for the same money. The people who 
come to Europe to live, in order to economize, are strangers 
and do not care for appearances. They rent apartments in a 
street and building, such as they would not enter for any pur- 
pose at home, and live upon coarse food. Service is, indeed, 
cheaper ; but this and everything else has doubled in the last 
five years. But in all the smaller cities of America, families 
live prettily and more comfortably on the same money, than 
families of the same rank do here. We have paid from seven 
to eight American dollars a week in a small country inn, 
where our room was small and insufferably dirty, our food 
literally boiled beef and cabbage. In a place of similar pre- 



BOARDING-HOUSES. 295 

tension in America, one may have for two or three dollars at 
most, a beautiful room and the fat of the land. 

It is not the custom of hotel or boardinghouse-keepers to pay 
their servants at all. All who come must pay for the service' 
they receive, and find it charged in the bill ; but besides this, 
one must give Trinkgdd — drink-money, as a fee. They say the 
money thus charged is all put together and then divided among 
the servants ; but if this is done, they receive enormous wages, 
out of proportion to everything else in Germany. No person 
believes any such division takes place. For a week's very 
trifliug services we have paid a dollar and a half or two dollars 
Trinkgdd. Where we boarded a month or three months, we 
have it in our bill, with candles and coffee, though we had 
no extra service. If you engage board for so much, it means 
only food and rooms ; what the servant does in preparing your 
portion of the dinner, and making your bed is as separate as if 
she came in from another house to perform so much labor. 
Candles are extra, and never in hotel or family is there a bit 
of soap. This you must carry with you, wherever you go, 
and if you have any little commission performed it is also 
extra. We have been often charged for depositing a letter 
in the office twelve cents, when the servant had only to go 
across the street. All these things are, of course, included 
in every bill in every country ; but if you are told the 
whole amount in the beginning, you know whether they are 
within your means. We have found in some cities the cus- 
tom that when a family of wealth and distinction give a party, 
all who accept are expected to give a Trinkgdd to the servants 
on leaving, and have known many stay at home because they 
o<~u]d not afford this demand upon their purses — at least the 



296 PEASANT LIFE EST GERMANY. 

amount that it would be in the course of six months or a 
year. 

But while we have found such meanness and fraud, and exac- 
tion, we have also experienced much generous kindness. With 
one lady we took up our abode, with the express stipulation 
that we should pay only when there, and when absent in our 
wanderings, as we must often be, our things were to remain 
and no charge be made. "We remained on these terms several 
months, and in the most friendly relationship with our hostess, 
who belonged to an "old family," and considered herself a 
high-bred lady. Once we gave up our room to accommodate 
her, and lodged a long time with bugs and spiders, that she 
might be able to add to her income and pleasure, and when we 
left, found in our bill a charge for the time we had been absent 
as well as present, and purposely handed to us at so late an 
hour that there was no time for proof or parley. We must 
pay or lose an advantageous journey. We had not slept one 
night under her roof without being conscious that fleas 
were also our companions, as this is one of the penalties of 
living with old families, that the fleas and bugs are as old aa 
they, and as tenacious of their privileges. 

The next time we preferred those not so high-born, but 
truly high-bred, and experienced a generosity and kindness as 
unexpected, and a friendliness we do not often meet among our 
own countrywomen, and do not suppose that unkindness or 
exaction, on the whole, is more frequent in one country than in 
another. Yet it is true that " to bear one another's burdens " 
is not so common in Europe as in America ; for, alas ! they are 
not so often called upon to aid the exile and stranger, 
and practise self-denial for the good of others. They are taxed 



BOAHDING-HOTTSES. 297 

to support the poor, but their sympathies are not called out so 
continually. This we saw alluded to and lamented in a Ger- 
man paper, while it said that people were too prone to suspi- 
cion, and cared not to aid a person till it could be proved that 
he had come to misfortune by no evil deeds, and was not in 
need of assistance, because he had been extravagant. In the 
same article they bore testimony to the manner, in which all 
were received on American shores, and a friendly hand ex- 
tended to all, without inquiring of their worthiness till it could 
have time to prove itself. Societies for all benevolent objects 
among ladies are the exception in Germany, and not the rule, 
it being considered more womanly to stay at home and em- 
broider, than to thread dark alleys to discover and alleviate 
suffering. 

Miss Sieveking is the Mrs. Fry of Germany, but there are few 
out of Hamburg, the immediate scene of her labors, that take 
any interest in her appeals, and many among the educated 
ladies of other cities that never heard her name. The terrible 
fear of becoming still more indifferent in the eyes of men, who 
now look upon them as only fit to minister to their wants, 
deters the women from going out of this sphere which their 
lords have prescribed for them, and only by showing how 
well they can cook and mend, can they hope to get hus- 
bands, and without husbands, alas ! what a deplorable con- 
dition ! 

Ladies who have the best means of knowing, and no motive 
for misrepresenting their country, say family happiness is very 
rare in Germany. Marriages are so often mere arrangements 
of convenience, and where women can do nothing else, they 
enter upon family duties with so little idea of their require* 

13* 



298 PEASANT LIFE LN GERMANY. 

merits, thinking only to get a home and support, that it is 
impossible the result should be otherwise. A German lady 
who had been in America, said she wished all the men could go 
there to learn to be husbands ; but the women must also learn 
to be somewhat different, before any special exhortations or 
examples will change the men. 



CHAPTER XX. 

AGRICULTURAL FAIRS COSTUMES GARDEN FESTIVALS. 

We were in Freiberg at the time of the semi-annual fair, 
but saw only a repetition of what we have described else- 
where, except that the costumes were those of the. south more 
than the north, and many we had not seen before. At the first 
.glance one seems to be among a horTied race, so peculiarly is 
the coiffure of the women arranged. The hair is combed 
smoothly behind the ears, and brought to the top of the back 
of the head in a twist, which is surmounted by a bow of black 
ribbon four and five inches wide, each bow standing straight 
out from the side eight or ten inches, with ends fringed with 
gold or silver reaching a little beyond. It was a great mystery 
to us how they could be kept in their places without lopping, 
till with quite unlady-like scrutiny we had peered among them, 
and ascertained that some were starched, and some were lined 
with stiff paper or canvas, that kept them in no danger of 
wrinkles or tumbles. 

The dress is a bodice of silk, or some fine stuff, cut square 
in the bosom, and the front crossed with different colors. The 
petticoat of green or red flannel, very full, and plaited with 
very fine plaits. All through the villages of the Black Forest 
we saw this petticoat, but with different bodices and other 
coiffures. The Vieslander, near Hamburg, has a petticoat some- 



300 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

thing similar, but with larger plaits, and, like this, reaching 
little below the knee, but with a blue stocking instead of white. 
Some of the men have also a white stocking, the trousers com- 
ing only to the knee, with velvet vest, and long coat of the 
pame. In some districts at the north the costume has gradu- 
ally disappeared, because too expensive; and in these cases, 
very evidently, was once that of the ladies of the court. Upon 
the Elbe and Eyder, among the Freisians, a servant girl is not 
considered respectably dressed unless she has a frontlet or thin 
clasp of gold across the forehead. In Biickeburg, the petticoat 
is of the finest scarlet broadcloth, striped with ribbons, and the 
boddice of black velvet. Around the waist, the chemise is 
brought out in a puff, and the sleeve is also visible to the 
shoulder. Around the neck is a broad velvet band, worn tight, 
and ornamented with buttons of gold and silver, or anything 
pretty within the means of the wearer. It is one of the pret- 
tiest of all the different costumes, and also one of the most ex- 
pensive. They deny themselves everything else in order to 
acquire all that pertains to a full dress. Yet many cannot 
afford it, and gowns of modern date are taking their place. 
The men wear long linen coats and straw hats, which measure 
a yard in diameter across the brim. 

But the Altonbergers, near Leipsig, are the most comical 
looking, their skirt being of many colors, and fitting from the 
waist to the knee almost as closely as drawers, and is yet but 
one piece. 

An agricultural fair in Germany is in many respects a more 
showy exhibition than can be produced in America. One 
which took place near Carlsruhe, which is the residence of the 
Grand Duke of Baden, will give an idea of all, where a similar 
attempt is made at a grand exposition. Upon a large platz in 



AGRICULTURAL FAIRS COSTUMES. 301 

the depths of the Hartzwald, or forest of the Hartz Mountains, 
were the preparations for the fete, where the most conspicuous 
object, upon approaching, was a graceful pavilion constructed 
for the occasion, the covering being of white linen — for it was 
to shelter royalty — and the pillars, knotted trunks of oak and 
fir, wreathed with vines and flowers of every hue. Around the 
lawn was a wide promenade; and when a salute of three guns 
announced the arrival of the royal cortege, the throngs of 
peasantry that had come through the forest in every direction 
from all the different provinces of the duchy, formed themselves 
into a procession behind the long file of carriages that composed 
the court; and when they had marched three times around 
with music and flying colors, the royal carriage stopped in front 
of the pavilion, before which the Grand Duke and his suite 
alighted, and the multitude arranged themselves in groups 
around the long tables which covered the square, k)aded with 
the productions of each province. 

But not only the dominions of the Duke of Baden were repre- 
sented, but troops from the Odenwald, the Yerstewald, the 
Valley of the Rhine, and the Palatinate, could be recognized 
by their several costumes, and in the procession the women, 
maidens, and little girls, were the first after the royal party 
and members of the scientific congress, not only gay with the 
many colors of their national dress, but crowned with wreaths 
and bearing flowers. There were the broad petticoats and 
variegated bodices of the Brisgau; a long row of yellow- 
painted straw-hats, with the dazzling hue a little relieved by 
sprigs of green, from another district of the Black Forest; and 
in striking contrast, a troop of young girls from the Swiss 
Cantons, with a straw hat of a more coquettish form, the little 
red petticoat more jauntily worn, and set off by a snowy- white 



302 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

apron. More lightly, too, they trip on their way, and we 
therefore fancy have lighter hearts. 

After the maidens came the young men, not as fanciful, but 
not less distinct in the characteristics of the land where they 
dwell. First, the peasantry of the valley of Kinzig, with thick 
heavy boots and stout grey roundabouts. Then those whose 
toil allows a lighter costume and gayer mien, and which we have 
before seen among the extensive hop-fields of the Palatinate. 
They are followed by the shepherds of the Black Forest, walk- 
ing side by side with the miners of swarthy tint. Each group 
exhibits in its march, that for which his district is most 
famous. One is leading a spirited horse, with gay bridle ; 
another a yoke of fat oxen. Some are holding aloft sheaves of 
wheat, others clusters of grapes, and still others, strings of 
vegetables. There are flocks of sheep and herds of swine, goats 
from the hills, and herds from the valleys, and representatives 
from all the feathered tenants of the farmyards. One might 
have thought Noah had opened not only the windows but the 
doors of the ark, and let all that were within go forth. 

Before the pavilion was erected a "triumphal column," con- 
structed by a fanciful scaffolding, covered with branches of fir 
and cypress, and hung from top to bottom with every species 
of grain and fruit and vegetable which the duchy produces. 
What melons, what peaches, what pears — what a temptation, 
those ripe and purple clusters, and with what exquisite taste 
has all been arranged, so that the sombre and green come in 
pleasing contrast with bright and mellow hues. 

How much more honorable and more gratifying must be a 
sight like this to any king or potentate, than so many men 
armed with spikes and bayonets, cultivating and exercising the 
basest instead of the noblest passions of the soul. Yet we could 



FAMINE IN SILESIA. 303 

not help thinking it would be well for the Grand Duke of 
Baden, or Wurtemberg or Hesse Darmstadt, to see these gay 
and merry troops under less favorable circumstances of toil and 
privation, exhibited in their homes. It is difficult to imagine 
groups like these can ever be cold or hungry, or suffering for 
food ; but though the land is filled with plenty, it is only the 
tables of the kings that have always enough. In every pro- 
vince there are occasionally scenes like those described by 
another, as having taken place in Upper Silesia, in 1848. "In 
the autumn of 1841, their potatoe crop failed. This was almost 
their entire dependence for food during the winter, and the 
other harvests were this year not so good as usual. They were 
obliged before winter, to resort to roots, and mingle chalk with 
their meal. When winter came it was with unexampled sever- 
ity, and the year 1848 opened on a scene of suffering and des- 
titution in Upper Silesia, such as the world has seldom witnessed. 
Men wandered starving and haggard in the streets, grasping 
food where they could find it. Corpses lay unburied by the way 
side. Houses were filled with the dead, and no one knew it, 
and the officers of the government, who forced open the doors, 
not unfrequently found the famishing wife in the arms of the 
husband, who had perhaps been dead for days. All that is 
disgusting, heart-sickening in human misery, was experienced 
by thousands and tens of thousands, in this Prussian province. 
The Catholic clergy labored incessantly among the sufferers, 
and the ' sisters of charity/ were known not seldom to have 
slept in the snow while going about to help the starving. But 
all aid was of no avail. As the spring came on, to the horrors 
of famine were added the raging of a fearful pestilence, caused 
by the unburied dead, and the foul nourishment on which the 
inhabitants had lived. The priest was swept away with the 



304 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

sick whom he would relieve, and even the immense establish- 
ments for feeding the people, erected by the Catholic clergy, 
were of little use. The whole population were so weakened and 
hopeless, that the highest wages could not induce them to 
labor, and they could hardly make the necessary exertion to 
receive the food which was offered them. The government for 
a long time paid no attention to the complaints which were 
made, and it was not till in some districts one-fifth, and in others 
nearly half the population had perished, that it deigned to con- 
tribute its aid." 

By one who assured us it was true, we were told that once 
the king set out to visit this province, that he might see for 
himself if the reports were correct. But first he sent a messen- 
ger to apprise the people of his coming, and commanding that 
they should appear in their holiday dresses to greet him as he 
passed in the streets. Those who had strength obeyed, as no 
command of the king is to be resisted, without danger of worse 
punishment than famine. They were also commanded to sing 
and cheer him. When he saw them in gay attire, and heard 
their voices in loud chorus ring through the air, he exclaimed, 
"What a happy people ! I had not thought to see such com- 
fort and happiness in all my dominions." So he returned to his 
palace to revel in luxury upon the flesh and blood of his sub- 
jects. The burdens of taxation are so great, and their poverty 
so wretched at all times, that only a little additional misfortune 
reduces them to starvation. 

We were reminded of this visit of the king of Prussia to his 
starving people, as we looked upon this ducal cortege in the midst 
of the gay peasantry and agricultural plenty. Here is enough, 
and to spare; but it is not those who toil who enjoy the fruit of 
their labors, and the failure of a crop in Baden or the valley 



GARDEN FESTIVALS. 305 

of the Rhine, produces consequences for which they cannot 
provide, and from which they cannot recover in many successive 
years. 

Still we must not depreciate the labors of the men of science, 
who have done much to insure good husbandry, and certain re- 
sults which cannot fail to be of some advantage to the peasant, 
though the largest profits fill the coffers of princes.. In many 
cities there are voluntary associations for distributing prizes to 
those who produce the best flowers, fruits, and vegetables, and 
the exhibitions of these are very attractive and beautiful. The 
flower festival is held in April, when all the gardeners from 
the surrounding country bring from their greenhouses and 
conservatories what they have been able to grow to rare perfec- 
tion, and ladies and gentlemen contribute from their private 
stores what will serve to adorn the festival. We saw one of 
these in a northern city. The hall was very large, and all 
around against the walls, half the height, upon a sloping mossy 
bank were arranged the flower-pots, in a manner to place their 
contents in the most favorable light, and give the cheeks of the 
pale and rose-tinted beauties the best relief. A richer display 
of gold, green, and scarlet we never beheld, the children of 
every country and clime. The floor of the centre of the hall 
was covered with moss, and here and there, in groups, a bed of 
roses, of hyacinths, of tulips, of cactus, in every phase of bud 
and blossom — little knots of shrubbery — vines woven in most 
graceful tracery, tall trees shading the delicate garden chair, 
which the maker has placed here also to exhibit in its most 
favorable light, and upon little tables are vases and little moss 
beds arranged in dishes teeming with the same luxurious 
beauty. Around this bed a bank of earth, covered with turf, 
is raised, upon which flower-pots are set so thickly that one 



306 peasant life in geemany. 

can only see a continuous line of variegated leaves and petala 
In one corner are early radishes, cucumbers, turnips, and cab- 
bages, not less ambitious of attention and reward. In every 
iiower-pot is perched upon a little stick the name of the flower, 
its price, where it was raised, and by whom owned, and when 
any one is sold this is added to the items of intelligence. The 
gardeners stand by their several groups to give information 
and make sales, but nothing is removed till the exhibition 
closes. The medals are arranged in a glass case with the 
names of those to whom they are awarded. In the summer 
there is a similar exhibition of fruits, and in the autumn of 
vegetables, when flowers only appear to vary the scene, and 
there is no occasion out of the common course in Germany, 
where flowers do not grace the board, not a spot of earth upon 
which the tiniest violet can bloom, that is not made to produce 
one. 

This society was commenced by a few gentlemen uniting to 
form a little capital, which increases by others joining as they 
become interested, and by what is taken in entrance fees at the 
door, twelve cents each being the price of admission. There 
are now several hundred different societies for the promotion 
of agriculture in the states denominated the Zollverein, or 
states united by a Tariffverein, and to these belong several 
thousand members, all in correspondence with each other, and 
meeting often at different places for discussion upon all subjects 
relating to agricultural interests. All that science can do is 
brought to their aid to analyze soils and discover the chemical 
nature of grains and fruits, with reference to their adaptation 
to each other, and those of all ranks unite heartily in the 
work. Some are private associations and some are supported 
by the government. 



GARDEN FESTIVALS. 307 

In Darmstadt an experiment was commenced many years 
since of forming a class of thirty or forty peasant youths a 
year, to be taught by the " Grand Counsellor of the Forests," 
belonging to the royal domains, at "the expense of government. 
He delivered a course of lectures upon the nature of soils, and 
the best methods of agriculture, and gave them lessons in 
drawing. Each class enjoyed the benefit of his instructions 
three months, and the first year his success was so great that 
he was astonished, and before the members of a scientific con- 
gress said : "Do not think that to be born a peasant is to be 
born without capacity ; I have proved the contrary. Out of 
forty pupils only one has failed to answer to what was expected 
of him. All the others have exceeded our hopes even." In 
the course of time, as these young men are scattered about the 
country, there must follow very beneficial results, though the 
knowledge they acquire in so short a time is, of course, very 
limited. When they have experienced the benefit in an im- 
proved condition they will make exertions for self-improvement, 
and a new generation will be still more thoroughly imbued with 
the spirit of enterprise and progress. 

But the efforts of one of the members of the royal family 
of Austria seem to be attended with still greater blessings 
among the Tyrolese and the inhabitants of the Styrian moun- 
tains. The Archduke John, one of the youngest of nine bro- 
thers and sisters, and therefore very far removed from all hopes 
of wearing a crown, turned his ambition into a different chan- 
nel, and devoted himself to the humbler sphere of agriculture 
and manufactures. Yery early he selected a rural retreat 
in the country, far from Vienna, and by associating with the 
people, and taking an interest in their affairs, gained their love 
and inspired them with a desire to emulate a higher life. He 



308 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

spent a year in England, and traveled over all his own country, 
in order to improve himself, but his movements were never ap- 
proved by his family. " Yes," said his brother the emperor, 
" John is a very brave man, a very brave man, but he has one 
great fault : > what he should not do he doc«, and what he 
should do he does not.' " In all the French war he is conspicu- 
ous as the leader of armies, and especially as one of the be- 
loved leaders of the brave Tyrolese, who would not yield even 
at the command of their king, but choosing a general from 
among themselves, defended their country to the last moment. 
The rifle of Hoffer, not less skillful, nor less brave than a noble- 
man, is preserved among the curiosities in the house of the 
Archduke John. When the war was over, he returned to his 
rural life, and married a wife from among the people, with 
whom he has lived happily during a long life, and who has 
been his helpmeet in his labors for their good. He has founded 
many agricultural societies, which have introduced a better 
husbandry among the Styrian peasantry, and any calamity 
which befalls them, from fire or drought, fails not to move his 
heart to pity and his hand to help. Yery beautiful is the de- 
votion of these people to their benefactor, and this instance of 
daily association of the high-born with the lowly, proves that 
respect for the one does not diminish while the heart of the 
other is softened and filled with sympathy by a knowledge of 
the character and wants of his dependents. Often he assumes 
the peasant costume, rambling freely among the mountains, 
talking with them by the way, and supping with them at the 
village inns. To his royal relatives he exhibits a vulgar mind 
by these habits, but no other member of the family has, for a 
century, shown a capacity for anything but brutal tyranny, 
while to him the intricacies of science and art are familiar, and 



ARCHDUKE JOHN. 309 

the prosperity of the empire has been more promoted by his 
devotion to the study of men and mechanics than all the others 
have accomplished together. At Gratz he established, in 1812, 
an institution for the encouragement of everything relating to 
science, arts, and manufactures, and where are collected speci- 
mens of the mineral and agricultural products of the whole 
country. It is called the Johannewm, from its founder. 

Near Brandhof, the residence of the Archduke, are the iron 
works, which also originated with him, as iron is the staple 
article of Styria, and all the improvements made in other coun- 
tries are introduced immediately into his manufactory, where 
the royal cannon are moulded, and the principal steam-engines 
for ships and railroads are produced. Very gladly would the 
people of Styria and the Tyrol throw off the iron yoke of Aus- 
tria and constitute themselves into an independent govern- 
ment, and many fears have been entertained that the prince, so 
popular amoDg the people, might attempt to put himself at the 
head of such a movement, but it does not appear that he has 
any ambition for that kind of power. In the revolution of 
1848, he was in favor of annihilating Austria, Prussia, and all 
the separate governments, and astonished the courts as well as 
people, by being the first to cry out, " No Austria, no Prussia, 
but one united fatherland." The liberal party looked to him 
as their hope, and when they did not succeed he was obliged 
to bear some of the blame ; but his home is in the hearts 
of the people, who have lost none of their affection for 
him. Now he is like a patriarch among them, being " old and 
well stricken in years," and they look to him as a father, of 
whose kindness and parental care they are sure in prosperity 
and adversity. His has been a life full of good deeds, while 
his kindred who have worn the crown and waved the sceptre, 



310 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

have done little else than stain their hands with the blood of 
the innocent. What magic can there be in power, that so 
many should prefer it with its load of crime and guilt, to a life 
of peace and love ? 



CHAPTER XXI. 

AMUSEMENTS CONTINUED A PASTOR'S WELCOME A VILLAGE RAIS- 
ING MARRIAGE CONTRACTS WEDDINGS GOLD AND SILVER 

WEDDINGS BIRTH-DAYS — NAME-DAYS GAMES. 

There is probably not a week in the year in which some 
festival does not occur. Every unusual event is converted into 
a fete, which in other countries is passed by as of no conse- 
quence. An ordination in America is an occasion of assembling 
together, and the people verily rejoice ; but in Germany there 
is a great expression of this joy besides. It was our good 
fortune to accompany a village pastor and his family, in the 
north of Hanover, when they went to take up their abode in a 
new place, and be ordained over a new people. We did not 
expect any demonstrations of welcome on our arrival ; but had 
scarcely entered the village, when a troop of boys and girls 
issued from a side street and screamed at the top of their voices: 
"They are coming, they are coming I" and then they arranged 
themselves on each side of our carriage, and taking off their hats, 
bowed and cheered us all the way to the place of our destina- 
tion. On reaching this, we were escorted through a high arch, 
erected for the occasion, of evergreens, and flaunting with 
flowers and ribbons. Before this we alighted, and walked 
beneath the gay canopy to the door, over which, upon the 
outside, and over every window, was a wreath suspended by a 

811 



312 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

gay ribbon, to crown a semi-circle of white paper bound with 
scarlet, upon which were texts of scripture, or words of poesy, 
that spoke of welcome and joy. 

Within were corresponding words and devices j the floor was 
strewn with a carpet of green, decked with roses, and all around 
were trellised vines and bouquets of flowers. As we had come 
somewhat earlier than they expected, the supper was not ready ; 
but great loaves of bread lay upon the table, joints of meat, 
chickens, vegetables, butter, cheese, and all that could be 
needed for a hearty meal. The elders and their wives were 
there to greet us, and all at our service, upon whom we might 
call for any attention. It was indeed a welcome to gladden a 
pastor's heart, for all had been done by the villagers in the 
most cordial sincerity and love. 

On the Sunday succeeding, was the ordination, when the 
church was also decorated. The ceremonies were similar to 
those in America, except that the clergymen were in robes. 
A sermon was preached; the solemn laying on of hands, the 
right hand of fellowship, and the final blessing were the same 
that we have often seen. But the pastor is expected to give a 
dinner afterwards, and have at his table the assisting clergy- 
men, the elders, and any other strangers he may choose. 
Ample stores are provided, however, by the people, and ample 
service given by the village youth and maidens, who afterwards 
serve themselves to what is left. 

A village raising is another festive scene. When a house is 
finished, all except the roof, and that is ready to place upon 
the walls, all the principal families are invited to witness the 
ceremony, and partake of a feast, to which each guest must 
contribute. When the rafters are joined, a man ascends to 
the highest point with a large wreath, with which he crowns 



SPINNING CIRCLES. 313 

the united spars, and then making a speech, takes a bottle of 
wine and hurls it to the earth. If it breaks, well and good ; 
but if not, no luck will come to the house or its owners. The 
man who bears the wreath is followed by a long procession, 
who wait till he has fulfilled his commission, and receive him 
with shouts as he descends, when all proceed to the table, 
where they eat, drink, and are merry for many hours, and then 
a dance closes the scene. The empty barrels tell in what con- 
dition they must reach their homes. 

When a baby is born among the poor, the village matrons 
are expected to call and fill the mother's cupboard with good 
things, to last till she is able to attend to it herself, and when 
she first appears at church, thanks are offered for her recovery. 

During the winter, spinning circles are held two or three 
times a week, first in one house and then in another, till all 
have been visited, when they begin again. Each maiden's 
wheel is carried by her lover, who accompanies her, and sits 
by her side during the evening, with his elbows upon his knees, 
a little pipe in his mouth, and knitting-work in his hand, with 
which he keeps as busy as she with her distaff, unless he stops 
to give her a kiss now and then, which she does not take at all 
amiss. The pastors' wives sometimes try to interfere with 
these spinning circles, which do not always end as decorously 
as they begin ; but they find it, on the whole, better to permit 
them to meet openly, as otherwise they will meet secretly, 
and in less proper and more dangerous ways. It is some re- 
straint upon them, that when they come to be married they 
are not allowed to wear a bridal wreath unless they pre- 
serve their purity, and we saw the pastor on one occasion, 
when it was evident the wreath was unworthily worn, take a 
handkerchief and spread over the head of the bride, thus 

14 



314: PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

publishing what perhaps few besides would have observed. 
In some provinces, when the father goes to register the birth 
of his child, being asked the date of his marriage, as he 
always is, and finding the birth too soon, he is compelled to 
pay a sum to government. Yet all this seems on the whole 
to be of little use; as a lady tells us, who has lived many years 
in a northern village, that she seldom knew a wedding where 
the wreath could in all honor appear. 

Among the wealthy peasantry," a marriage is sometimes agreed 
upon by the parents, when the children are infants or very 
young, in order to unite lands or other possessions, after the 
manner of princes, and in these cases of betrothals without 
their consent, the children obey, and cases of infidelity are very 
rare among married peasants. Before and during a betrothal, 
they suffer no discredit for any degree of immorality ; but after 
marriage, are disgraced, if not strictly upright. It often hap- 
pens that several children are born before the parties are old 
enough or in a condition to marry ; but when they are, it takes 
place with the same ceremony as if the wedding had preceded 
the children. 

A wedding at the north, in the primitive style, is a grand 
affair. In every village is a man whose special office it is to 
carry wedding invitations, which he does on horseback with a 
long staff buckled to his side, hung with ribbons of every 
color of the rainbow, a large knot of the same in front, his hat 
gay with long streamers, and his horse's head and tail in corres- 
ponding array. This is the uniform of the person who lias the 
office, and is kept sacredly through many generations. He sets 
out in gay spirits, stopping before every door, calling aloud to 
those within to come forth, when, in rustic rhyme, he tells his 
errand, endeavoring to be as humorous as he can, and they 



WEDDINGS. 315 

offer him a glass of brandy, to keep up his spirits and sharpen 
his wits. Before he has delivered a hundred messages, how- 
ever, he is apt to get somewhat dull. Every family is re- 
quested to bring their own knives and forks, and spoons, and 
where servants are kept, they also are expected to come. If 
the wedding is among the poor, a present must be offered, and 
in this way many obtain their means of going to housekeeping. 
The bride is escorted to the house of her lover by a cortege, 
consisting of the bridesmaids, who sit with her in the carriage, 
where also are her bed and spinning-wheel, with the distaff 
adorned with gay ribbons. Four horses draw the carriage 
with ribbons fluttering from their heads, and in front ride the 
bridesgrooms on horseback, with flowers and bows in their but- 
tonholes and hat-bands. The bride enters her new home with 
great ceremony, where she is greeted by the company already ■ 
assembled by drinking her health, when they all proceed to 
church, where the pastor awaits them. The form of marriage 
is the same everywhere, and like that of the Episcopal church. 
If they are not able to furnish themselves with rings, they 
exchange a piece of coin instead, and thus their troth is sealed 
and they are pronounced husband and wife. The schools are 
not in session on a wedding day, as the schoolmaster must be 
invited, and the children are all allowed to be spectators, and 
the young men shoot with guns, both going and returning from 
church, making a great noise. 

When the procession returns the dinner is ready, and has 
been the same at every wedding- feast for a century. The pastor 
and family, and any others who are not peasants, have a sepa- 
rate table, with plates and knives for each person. But all at 
the weddiug-table are not furnished with these luxuries, but help 
themselves with their fingers or each other's forks and spoons 



316 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

directly from the dishes, which consist invariably of soup, boiled 
ham, boiled rice with sauce, and roast veal. On the pastor's 
table is also roast duck, made particularly excellent in the eyes 
of the people by being strewed with sugar and cinnamon ! 

The festivities continue three days, but the pastor and 
schoolmaster only attend the first, and on the third all are so 
weary that they retire early, and are not very many. 

The dance commences soon after the dinner, during which 
every man must dance with the bride, and the groom with every 
maiden, and at the end of every figure or waltz each must pay 
a few cents. The most interesting ceremony is that of stealing 
the garter off the bride, which must be done by one of the 
young men ; but, knowing this beforehand, she places it very 
low, and when it is removed, the husband must redeem it with 
money. Then her shoe is passed around to receive any volun- 
tary contributions. They dance all night, and in the morning 
sleep upon benches, or chairs, or tables, for a little while, and 
then dance all day and all another night. 

In the Black Forest we attended a wedding, where the 
parties were Catholics. They came from a distance to the 
hotel, and walked in procession to the church, the men on one 
side of the street and the women on the other, preceded by 
six little girls of seven years of age, dressed in white, with 
wreaths upon their heads, and long sashes. High mass was 
performed, and burning candles placed before the bride. 
When they were ready, the father of the bride led her to the 
altar, and the young man was led by his father. When they 
met, they knelt upon a cushion, side by side, and the priest read 
the service. When he attempted to put the ring upon the 
finger of the bride, he dropped it, which excited a great com- 
motion among the people, as it is considered an evil omen. 



GOLD AND SILVER WEDDINGS. 317 

They formed a procession, similar to the first, to return to the 
inn, where the bride was greeted with kisses and congratu- 
lations for half an hour, when they drank coffee, and departed 
to their new home, where the feast and dancing were the same 
as we have before described. 

The anniversary of a wedding is observed in some way by all 
ranks, but a lady told us that when the marriage was not 
happy, it was not a very pleasant custom, and that she never 
once mentioned her weddiDg-day in the twenty years she 
lived with her husband. But we knew a silver wedding ob- 
served under very curious circumstances. The parties had 
lived together pleasantly enough for many years, and had 
several children, when the husband, who was a very sentimen- 
tal man, fell in love with a very sentimental woman, and left 
his wife and children a long time, to live with her in platonic 
friendship, but as the prince to whom they were subject would 
not consent to a divorce, at length they removed to a distant city, 
and were married. When the twenty-fifth anniversary arrived, 
the husband and father returned to his first wife and children, 
to celebrate the silver wedding, which was attended with all 
the ceremonies usual on such occasions, and seemed to pass as 
joyously as if they had not been separated. A silver wreath 
is worn by the wife, and a silver buckle by the husband, friends 
are invited, gifts presented and congratulations offered. When 
they had passed a week together they separated again, as 
amicably as they had met, perhaps not to meet again till the 
golden wedding, which occurs on the fiftieth anniversary, when 
they wear a golden crown and golden buckle, and children and 
grandchildren become part of the festive circle. 

In Saxony, the wife may divorce her husband for infidelity, 
as in other countries the husband may divorce the wife. Big- 



318 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

amy is a cause of divorce, and desertion on either side, or 
any attempt on the life of the other by either party, or any 
disgraceful crime that is punished by imprisonmeui. There is 
a case now pending in Hanover, where it is under discussion, 
if the husband may open letters directed to his wife, if he sus- 
pects her fidelity. It was decided in one court that he might, 
and the accused wife appealed. The decisions of the higher 
court are not made known. When the wife divorces the hus- 
band for infidelity, he can have none of her property, and she 
retains the children, while young, but he may have them when 
older to educate, if proved that he is better able, but both 
parties are allowed to see them, unless likely to be a moral 
injury to them. 

It is curious that in Prussia the laws were made more strin- 
gent concerning divorce lately, in order to promote morality, 
and in Saxony relaxed to promote the same end. 

Birthdays are also among the honored ones, and we said to 
an elderly unmarried lady : " You cannot be so sensitive in 
Germany about telling your age as they are in other countries. 
If any anniversary is kept, all must know your age." 

" And why not," she said, " why should I be ashamed of my 
age ? I am fifty-two, what matter is it who knows ?" But 
we were told by others that they often attended birth- 
day festivals, year after year, without knowing the age of the 
person whom they congratulated. It was a question never 
asked, and a subject never alluded to. It was not necessary 
to know exactly how many years one had lived, in order to 
wish them still many more of happiness and love. Presents 
are a part of the ceremony on all occasions. We came down 
one bright spring morning to the breakfast-room, without 
knowing that it was the birth-day of any one in the house. The 



BIRTHDAYS NAME-DAYS &AMES. 319 

walls and windows were festooned with green, the table was ar- 
rayed in flowers, and loaded with toys, and arround were hang- 
ing various articles that told distinctly enough in whose honor 
was all this. A door, the upper part of which was glass, 
separated this room from the nursery, and soon we saw a little 
head with silver curls appear, crowned with a wreath of shin- 
ing leaves and rosy buds. What a shouting of merry voices ! 
Then came the nurse with her little charge dressed in white, 
with another wreath about her waist. How she clapped her 
little hands as she was seated in a high arm-chair, converted 
into a Naiad's bower, by an arch of green, and wreaths of 
moss and ivy, and placed at the table. She was only two 
years old, and did not at all appreciate the new hat and cloak, 
or dress, but was immediately absorbed in trying to feed a pair 
of sugar twins, that were perfect representations of a living 
German baby in swaddling clothes. They are rolled up like a 
mummy, and we never laughed so heartily as when we first saw 
one in such a plight, with its little woman's cap tied close 
under its chin. We had never quite appreciated a birth-day 
festival till we saw this. 

Among Catholics name-days are also observed, that is, the 
day on which they are christened, but we were present only 
once where this occurred, and it was then the mother of a 
family who was honored. Wine was sent her from her aged 
parents, far distant, to drink on the occasion, and had been 
sent every name and birth-day since her marriage. We had 
a sumptuous dinner with a few friends who brought gifts. In 
the evening, games were played, and the children danced. 

Cards, games and puzzles, may be seen upon every German 
table, and we were never anywhere that they were not the 
amusement of the children, on Sunday and other holiday even- 



320 PEASANT LIFE TN GERMANY. 

ings. This is a strange sight to an American, and many a dis- 
cussion we have had with the parents concerning it. They say 
always, it is better to afford them innocent amusement at home, 
than to have them sighing from weariness, and longing for for- 
bidden pleasures. The children look upon cards as upon toys 
of any other kind, and use them in the same way. In answer 
to whether it does not lead them to a taste for gambling, they do 
not think there is so much danger as when they are concealed 
and prohibited at home, for they are sure to learn by stealth 
when they go into the world, and become more excited in this 
way than when practising it always as an innocent amusement. 
But in all these things we cannot judge. 

The pleasant and oft recurring festivals we like. They fill 
the home with joy, and scatter over all life's pathway those 
happy memories which give to the darkest some brightness, 
and to the bitterest cup some sweetness, and no pilgrimage 
through this world is in danger of not being sufficiently weary. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

COSTUMES WOMEN WORKING IN THE FIELD — LODGINGS AT AN INN 

KITCHEN WORK RECIPE FOR PRESERVING FRESH FRUIT ■ 

CIDER MAKING TILES CARTS WOODEN UTENSILS APPLE-BEE 

SAUSAGES FOOD CHIMNEY-SWEEPS TITLES ETIQUETTE OF 

CALLING BETROTHALS. 

It is curious that in some peasant districts the women adhere 
as tenaciously to the hat as the Indian women, though in 
no other respect do they don men's attire. But not at all 
times are they so becoming as at the fair, where they serve to 
give variety, and in gala dress did not seem out of place. We 
have seen those happy-looking wives and merry-hearted maid- 
ens, bearing the burden and heat of the day in the midst of 
their toils, and learned that those we saw before were not only 
holiday costumes but holiday smiles. 

In the Black Forest, where a new road was being cut 
through a mountain, and for miles the hill must be dug out, 
we saw droves of women, with those same painted straw hats, 
breaking stones with an iron martel upon the highway, and 
other droves filling the wheelbarrows with dirt, and filing off 
in a long row to empty them into the valley. Besides the hat, 
their costume was a coarse petticoat like the frocking of the 
New England farmer, and a sort of jacket of the same ; often 
no stockings or shoes, or if they have, so coarse and hard 
that they seem to be more painful to the feet than the stones. 

In the region of Bremen, or Hamburg, we have seen whole 

H * 321 



322 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

troops of people with the sabots, or wooden shoes, which are 
great clumsy things carved from one piece of wood, and go clat- 
tering at every step. In the south we noticed none but leather ; 
but they are too costly to be worn every day, and so these 
poor women tramp from morning till night, barefooted upon 
these sharp stones, doing the labor that, in America, is only 
performed by the lowest class of Irishmen. Their dress and 
appearance reminded us of the negro women upon southern 
plantations. What must the homes be which are arranged 
and sanctified by such women, and what the children, nursed 
and cared for by such mothers ? 

In some places a kind of a higher class is formed by those 
who do not allow the women to work in the fields and on tbe 
roads ; it was in such a family that we spent a little time 
during the apple-gathering and cider-making period, in the 
autumn. They kept the village inn ; but on a road that did 
not bring them a throng of customers from foreign parts. 

The father was, in appearance and manners, like the better 
class of farmers in New England, and the wife and daughters 
also very similar to those we should find in the same position 
at home. And, alas, we must say the comparison goes farther. 
In both cases when they arrive at a kind of independence, it is 
the man alone who arrives at ease. Being no longer obliged 
to work in the field, he only exercises a kind of supervision 
aver his affairs, working a little every day if lie chooses, and the 
remainder of the time smoking and chatting with his customers. 

As usual in German inns, there is no place where a woman 
can sit down and be decent or comfortable, except in her room, 
and here we took all our meals. The rooms for guests 
were furnished with the usual quota of long wooden benches, 
placed against the walls, and the long wooden tables in front — 



A GERMAN TNN. 323 

and never made more cheerful by cloth or napkin. There might 
be seen at every hour of the day also, the usual quota of wine- 
bibbers and beer-drinkers, munching black bread, and smoking 
and gossiping, as if these were the great objects of life. 

We asked for a room with one bed, but were obliged to take 
one with two, and when we came to pay our bill, found we 
were obliged to pay for two also, though only one was occupied. 
It was made up with special care for our comfort, and consisted 
first of a thick straw bed, as foundation ; upon this, at the 
head, a large solid straw pillow, made upon the principle of an 
inclined plane. Then came another hard bed, but a little softer 
than the straw. Now, the snowy linen sheets, and two feather 
pillows, upon which it would be impossible to sleep except 
in an upright position. Upon these were placed two feather 
beds, each half a yard in depth, so that from the top to the 
bottom, the whole measured two yards. In many peasant 
houses that we have seen, the guest-chamber is furnished 
with a ladder upon which to climb to the top of the bed, and 
we should certainly have needed one here if we had thought 
of finding repose upon such a mountain ; but instead of this 
we spent half an hour removing the several layers, until the 
proper height was reached for our convenience. We did not 
have to make our bed but it was considerable labor to re- 
make it ; but we could not think of asking any change in the 
arrangements, as this would destroy the beauty of the bed, 
which is everywhere made up as high and round as possible, 
in order to look well in their eyes. How it is possible for 
people to preserve health, sweated and sweltered every night 
by such a process, we do not understand, and they woudered 
not less how we could sleep in any other way. The only other 
furniture of the room was a deal table; upon which every even* 



324 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

ing was set a bowl of fresh water for our morning ablutions, 
and a tumbler filled with the same for our mouth ; with each day 
a clean towel, and three times a week all the linen of the bed 
renewed, which was a luxury we never found elsewhere, and in 
no city oftener than once a month. 

We had furnished ourselves with chocolate, knowing it could 
not be purchased so far in the country, and had, every morning, 
sweet milk, and the usual good bread, with two eggs, for 
our breakfast. For dinner, boiled beef and black bread, after 
a soup which was only the water in which the beef had been 
boiled, sometimes a pickle, and perhaps for dessert, a piece of 
fried pork, or liver, with potatoes. For supper, chocolate and 
bread, but others had a hearty meat-supper, at nine o'clock, in 
the common room. The mother and daughters worked all the 
day in the kitchen and dining-room, and when we have looked 
out very early, we have seen the wife washing floors and sweep- 
ing the street in front of the house, looking weary ere it was 
dawn, while her gude man slept. The daughters were very 
pretty, and dressed like New England girls of the same rank, 
having wholly discarded the peasant dress. They allowed us 
freely to enter the kitchen, and initiated us into all the opera- 
tions of dairy and pantry, and this we found all German house- 
wives willing to do. 

It was, as we said, the busy time of the year, and those who 
went to the fields, came home with carts laden with apples, 
pears, and nuts, which were deposited in bins for the several 
purposes to which they were destined. What we call in 
America English walnuts grow here in great abundance, and 
taste, when green, very much like butternuts. The bark is 
peeled off and dried for fuel, and the nuts put away in heaps, 
for the children to crack around the winter fire ; but among 



FRUIT HOW PRESERVED. 325 

the poorer families, they are carried to market, and exchanged 
for articles more necessary to life. 

The cider-press stands in the great barn floor, instead of 
having a house by itself, as in New England, and occupies only 
some feet of space, being turned by a man instead of a horse. 
A half tun stands to receive the expressed juice, in the taste 
of which we perceive no difference from that we were ac- 
customed to sip upon the philosophic principle of suction, 
through a straw, and which we see children doing in exactly 
the same way here. In the kitchen there is a scene, too, cor- 
responding exactly to the one exhibited in a New England 
kitchen, whilst the cider is making in the barn. A great kettle 
hangs in the fire-place, behind the stove, filled with halves and 
quarters of apples boiling in the liquid, which their brothers 
have furnished, and when it is done it will be cider apple-sauce, 
such as American housewives put up for the winter, and which 
keeps good here, as there, till spring. On the stove is another 
kettle with pear-sauce, prepared in the same way, but sweeter 
and richer ; and around are various small earthen pots with 
stews and sauces of a different kind. We have seen in the 
summer, a way of putting up fruit and berries, which we never 
saw before, and hope shall not be considered descending to 
insignificant particulars in transcribing a few recipes from a 
German cook-book, as it was not in the cook-book alone that 
we learned them. 

Many times in the winter we were regaled with fresh straw- 
berries and fresh gooseberries, and when summer came, learned 
how they were thus preserved : 

Take unripe gooseberries, clip tli3 stems and blossoms, be care- 
ful not to cut the skin of the berry, and put them in a clean dry 
wine-flask. Take a large kettle and cover the bottom with hay, 



326 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

then place the flasks so they will not touch each other in the 
hay, and so supported that they will not fall ; corked, but not 
tight. Then filling the kettle with cold water, set it over a hot 
fire, and boil till the water has entirely evaporated, when the 
kettle must be taken off, but the flasks allowed to remain in 
the hay till morning. Then seal them tight with rosin, and 
place them in the cellar, in a lying posture. After eight days, 
turn them and cover them with sand, and when they are taken 
out for use they are good as when bottled. 

Gooseberries are also prepared by clipping them in the same 
way, wiping them with a cloth, and putting them in a dry flask, 
sealed tight ; thus, no sugar is used till they are put upon the 
table. All plums, berries, and fruits are prepared in this way, 
and need no attention afterwards, being in no danger of fer- 
menting, much labor and expense are saved, and as a relish, 
they are better than when preserved in sugar. Sometimes tin 
boxes are used instead of glass, and then they are soldered by 
the tinman, but afterwards placed in hot water, to be sure to 
develop any air-holes that have escaped notice. We have 
seen a hundred of them in one store closet. 

Not only apple sauce, and pear sauce, and plum sauce are 
stewing upon the stove, but a dozen pots of sour milk, which is 
taken, after the cream is removed, and put in a warm place till 
it becomes of the right consistency to mould into the little 
Dutch cheeses we have mentioned. They cannot afford sweet 
milk for cheese. To a housewife's work there is no end in one 
country or another, but in a house where the women do all 
these things, and work also in the field and on the highway, 
what a life of slavery they must lead ! 

On the steps which lead out into the barn we hear the 
churn-dash splashing, and as we go to see, the noise of the 



FARM LIFE TILES. 327 

ii ails in the granan strikes our ear, so we go there to see also. 
The bundles of rye are strewn upon the floor in no different 
fashion from that to which we have been accustomed, but there 
are three men threshing instead of two, and they keep time not 
less exactly, but the motion of each is slower, and the music 
of the strokes a little different on this account. The flails are 
square instead of round, and heavier than those which the ma- 
chines have everywhere superseded in America. The threshing 
machine we have not seen in Germany. We have also visited 
the brick yard, where the process of moulding and burning the 
clay is very similar to that in America, but either the material 
is not so fine, or they do not work it so long to make it soft 
and smooth. The bricks, when finished, are coarse and rude ; 
but though houses are built of them in city and country, they 
are always covered with stucco, a kind of plaster, which may 
be made of any color, and admits of various species of orna- 
ment. With time it becomes dingy, and in all old towns, gives 
a peculiarly antiquated appearance to the walls. In America 
the climate would not admit of this species of finish, and we do 
not know why it is adhered to here instead of using paint, un- 
less that paint would not cover the rude bricks, and the bricks 
can be made in no other way. 

In the country, the first peculiarity that strikes one in the 
houses, is the roof covered with tiles instead of shingles. The 
process of mouldiug and baking these is similar to that of making 
the porcelain stoves. They are made of coarse potter's clay, 
which is either red or black, according to the coloring matter 
they use. It is in the marshy districts that they find the right 
kind of earth and stone for the mixture. The tiles are in the 
form of shingles, only a little wider, and placed upon the roof 
in the same way, one above the other. In the olden time the. 



328 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

peasants' houses were everywhere thatched with straw, and 
this is used still among the poorer classes, being much the 
cheapest material. But farmers and those who wish to pro- 
cure the benefit of insurance, must pay so much more where 
the danger from fire is so great, that it becomes cheaper in the 
end to use the tiles, and they last much longer than shingles. 
They have been so long used that they have given an individu- 
ality to the German landscape, of which the artist avails him- 
self to give effect to his sketches. When they are new they 
look neat and pretty, but become quite black with time an<3 
weather. So also does the straw, which we^Pkill see upon soma 
old farmhouses, with high peaked roof, an$ the eaves coming 
down almost to the earth. After a few years they are black as 
mud, and look not so well as black shingles or black tiles. 

We do not see anywhere the pretty wagons which in Amer- 
ica are deemed necessary for going to church and pleasure 
rides. On holidays the women and children are piled into the 
hay carts, with scarcely less ceremony than the corn and pota- 
toes, and acting upon the principle of conforming in all things 
to all men, and when with Romans or peasants, doing as they 
do, we have enjoyed whole days of sight-seeing from village to 
village in a cart that furnished us with no better seat than a 
rude board placed across from side to side, upon which it re- 
quired all our moral and physical strength to preserve our up- 
rightness. But the cart is by no means so graceful an affair as 
the one used in America. The sides are a rude ladder, and 
the bottom rough, heavy boards. Underneath hangs a basket 
with hay and other provender, " swinging as we go," and when 
we stop, is tied under the horse's nose to strengthen him for 
further efforts. To get in we climb over the wheels, and to get 
out, jump near half a rod ; but not in coach or carriage had 



WOODEN UTENSILS APPLE-BEE. 329 

we ever such genuine enjoyment, with sometimes only a peasant 
youth, and sometimes a peasant youth and maiden for our 
companions, now stopping to chat with a Frau at her spinning- 
wheel, a damsel at the brook, or a boy raking hay. Here and 
there upon the doorsteps are men and women weaving baskets 

of rushes. 

" For green grow the rushes 0," 

by every stream; and wherever there is a water-power, it is 
made to serve some purpose, either to the blacksmith or the 
cooper. We have been quite enchanted with the variety, con- 
venience, and neatness, of the wooden articles in every comfort- 
able dairy and kitchen. An American housewife would scarcely 
know the use of many of them; but would feel very rich were 
she once supplied. They are made, like almost everything else, 
by the peasantry in their leisure hours, who receive the different 
articles from a factory in an unfinished state, or make a begin- 
ning which the machinery must perfect. Thus are produced 
the wooden spoons, forks, knives, ladles, skimmers, boxes for 
flour, salt, spice, and fruits, that enable one to have everything 
very handy, and yet secure from dust, and give such a nice 
housewifery look to cupboard and storehouse. 

The hustings, so characteristic of American harvesting, we 
do not see in Germany, as the little Indian corn that is raised 
makes no such gatherings necessary. As we have elsewhere 
said, it is only the pigs and geese who luxuriate upon this ar- 
ticle ; but the apple-bee, for cutting and drying the winter's store, 
exhibits the same features, and the long pairing that can be 
turned over the head three times without breaking, when it 
falls gives the maiden the initial of her lover's name as correctly 
in one land as the other, and never yet did we see a woman w ho 
had not consulted this oracle ! 



330 PEASANT LIFE EST GERMANY. 

When it is time to kill pigs and • salt meat, which must b« 
done before Christmas, all the paraphernalia for butchering, 
trying fat, and making sausages, is not less imposing, nor less 
disagreeable, and for children is not less a grand gala season, 
among one people than another. Bnt in Germany sausages are 
made every month in the year, and we have counted thirteen 
different kinds, with as much difference in the taste, as between 
meat when fried, baked, and boiled. Several kinds have in 
them a mixture of meal, wheat, or rye, or oats; and some are 
smoked after being stuffed, like dried beef, and so thoroughly 
cured in this way, that they need no cooking in order to be 
palatable; some are mixed up with warm blood right from the 
animal, and considered thus greatly enriched; some are a mix- 
ture of liver and fat, with salt, pepper, and other condiments; 
others are made of smoked meats, with white bread, and but- 
ter, and spices, and it has lately been ascertained that horse- 
flesh is to a great extent used in their composition. During 
the festal week of Pfingsten (Whitsuntide) 185 T, several thou- 
sand pounds were served out to the people of one city in the 
form of sausages and salt beef. We only marvel how they can 
afford to slaughter horses for this ignoble purpose, as they 
seem altogether too precious and beautiful to be food for man ! 
If we were sure the sausages had nothing worse in them, we 
should eat them with a better relish than we sometimes do. 
There are many of them especially designed to be eaten with 
Butterbrod, in the form of sandioiches, and to be found every- 
where at restaurants and merry-makings, upon steamboats, and 
at railroad depots. 

In Southern Germany we seldom have bread and butter 
placed upon the table separately, but already spread, and with 
slices of smoked meat or sausage between. Ham is eaten in 



FOOD. 331 

the same way as dried beef, or cut into little bits half an inch 
square, and placed upon bread. To us it seemed like eating- 
raw meat, and we could by no effort succeed in swallowing it, 
to the great surprise of those who esteem it a luxury. The 
head and feet of pigs are converted into the compound every- 
where known as souse, or head-cheese, and not at all different 
from what we have always seen it. But a kind -of sausage is 
also made of the same materials. 

We have never seen what in New England is called a boiled 
dish, consisting of boiled beef, pork, tongue, and all garden 
vegetables. The boiled beef is eaten alone or with bread; 
afterwards come the vegetables, and never more than two 
kinds, with perhaps rice. They have a way of making turnips 
very savory, cutting them up after they are boiled, and stewing 
them in a rich gravy. We have seen boiled, but never 
baked beans, which would certainly be an acquisition to their 
bill of fare, if they could be convinced of it. 

Coffee is the common beverage among the poorest peasantry; 
but with the West Indian Moclja they mix burnt barley, oats, 
and a great deal of chickory. At breakfast, when they merely 
eat bread with it, they use no sugar, even when they are able, 
and having seen how little sugar is used any way, we must 
know that most of the coffee is drank without it, and some- 
times without milk. 

Hot bread of any kind is out of the question where it is all 
purchased at the bakers, and they do not know the use of soda 
or saleratus in city or country. We once asked a lady for a 
grain of soda, and she had not the least idea what it was, or 
what could be its use, and had as little idea of custards. No- 
where, in town or country, have we seen this delicious mixture 
of butter, milk, and eggs. 



332 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

Fishing or angling is not so common a sport in Germany as 
in other countries, but in the rivers, fish are very plenty and 
good. Many years ago salmon were so abundant in the Weser, 
that the authorities of Bremen were obliged, or rather felt 
obliged, to make a law forbidding families to give it to their 
servants more than twice a week, not considering it healthy to 
eat it oftener, which they were in great danger of doing when 
it was so cheap. The last few years it has been so scarce, that 
the richest families could not afford it, and enough for a course 
at dinner cost several dollars. Within a few weeks twenty 
thousand have been put in the river, which may soon oblige 
them to make another law for the health of servants ! So 
precious is every spire of grass, that farmers do not like the 
angler upon the borders of their streams to despoil it, and in 
the large rivers nets ensnare the victims by thousands, as 
they do on the shores of the Potomac. 

Chimney-sweeps are not the least curious of German insti- 
tutions, and are, like all others, government appointments. 
When we first met them we thought they were negroes, they 
are so thoroughly black from top to toe; but soon learned 
they were not so from nature's coloring. They cover them- 
selves closely, leaving only the eyes and ears free, and carry 
with them the machinery of their office. Two and two they 
are usually to be met, and seem as entirely a race apart as 
colored people are in America. We never saw them speak- 
ing or spoken to, but with slow and measured tread, entirely 
absorbed in their meditations, they march around, entering 
each house at the time appointed by the police, and sweeping 
the chimneys at their own discretion, the occupants never 
being consulted in the matter. They give notice in time for 
the stoves and fire-places to be cooled, and but very little 



TITLES. 333 

time is required in the operation. The brooms and scrapers 
have very long handles, and the chimneys are so constructed 
that they reach through a narrow aperture and bring down 
the soot without filling the room, though they look pretty 
thoroughly covered with it themselves. In large and small 
towns it is the same — the chimney-sweeps are a part of the 
governmental corps. 

Sleighing and sledging are not among the amusements of the 
peasantry, though favorite sports of the higher classes. They 
have wood to cut and draw, and chop, but so many other mate- 
rials are used for fire, and wood is so dear, that this is not so 
important a part of the winter's labor as among the farmers 
in America. The heath must be dug in the summer, and every 
patch of wood is owned by king, or duke, or noble, who has a 
forester to guard his possessions, and treasure the princely 
revenues which accrue from the sale of timber, wood and brush, 
on his domains. We are here reminded of the curious custom 
of giving to the wife of a man who bears a title, the same with 
a feminine termination. The wife of a forester is the Frau For- 
esterinn, the wife of a general the Frau Generalinn, and of a 
consul the Frau Consulinn, the last syllable answering to ess in 
English. However humble the office, the title must be used 
with not less ceremony, from Madam Privy Councilleress, to 
Madam Day-book Keeperess. The German language abounds in 
compound words, formed by adding to the beginning and the 
end of the original. This becomes very amusing iu addressing- 
titled ladies, converting a simple woman into Frau Oberconsis- 
torialdirectorinn. Mrs. Directress of the upper Consistory 
Court ! and must all be repeated every time she is addressed, 
or you commit an unpardonable offence. A merchant's wife, on 
registering her name at a watering place, was asked if she hac 



334 PEASANT LIFE EST GERMANY. 

no title. " No," she said : " I am simply Frau G ." " But 

you must have a title, it will bring you so much more consider- 
ation." Still she declined assuming honors not bestowed, but 
still the man persisted, and finally set her down as Frau Ober- 
apjpdlationsrathinn, by which she was afterwards called. One 
would think titled people would become of little importance 
among such an army, but it is only those who have some sort 
of government office who can sport a title, and there remains a 
still larger class without this distinction. In the free cities, 
merchants, and those of their callings, may be elevated to the 
highest offices, but when there they remain for life. Senators, 
representatives, and judges are never removed, unless for crime, 
and being human they are very apt to prefer their own interest 
to that of the people, and forget those with whom they were 
once on a level. In Frankfort-on-the-Maine, there a^e three 
men who officiate as Burgomasters in rotation, and which shall 
serve is decided by shaking three balls, black, white, and M ed, in 
a sack, and drawing them by chance. The one who happens to 
get the white ball is Burgomaster for three years, and tb^ next 
three, and so on, as long as he happens to get the right ball. 
There is no new election from among the people till on^ dies, 
or is deposed for some special offence. 

The customs and peculiarities of the higher classes do not 
come within our special province, yet may now and then illus- 
trate the condition of the lower, from whom they are separated 
by so broad a gulf. But the broad gulf of ceremony sepa- 
rates all Germans from those of other nations who may come 
among them. The etiquette of England and America, which 
requires that a stranger be sought by the inhabitants in whose 
midst he comes, is exactly reversed in Germany. If one has a 
letter of recommendation he must go and present it, which 



ETIQUETTE OF CALLS. 335 

seems very much like saying : " Here I am, and now of course 
you cannot avoid receiving me," and is so disagreeable a cere- 
mony that many stay a year without presenting a letter, and 
thus of course stay a year without making a single acquaint- 
ance. A young lady residing in a family can never receive 
a call or an invitation unless the family choose first to take her 
round to the houses of their friends. In that case she would 
probably find them very cordial, and very glad to see her, and 
afterwards experience their hospitality and kindness. But if 
she happened to be in a family where deep mourning made it 
unconventional for the family to pay visits, or for any worse or 
better reason they chose not to do it, and though the friends 
and acquaintances of the family call often and know she is there 
quite alone, and in a way to make it impossible for her to see 
anything of society or amusements, they take no notice of her, 
and never imagine they seem unfriendly, or that she must feel 
strangely desolate thus left to herself. In the same instance in 
England or America there would be greater effort to pay her 
attention ; all within the circle of the friends of the family would 
call and be sure that she did not feel neglect from the peculiar 
circumstances in which she happened to be placed. We knew 
a young lady thus situated, and for five months no human being 
manifested the least interest in her, and during all that time she 
entered but one house in the city. In another city the family 
took her to all their friends, and she was afterwarcfs treated 
with the utmost kindness and consideration. We sometimes 
asked if there was no such thing as inducing people to abandon 
so barbarous a custom, and they always replied, " no such thing 
as inducing a German to abandon any custom." The fashion- 
able hour for calling is between twelve and one, and it would 
be quite dangerous to presume upon the forgiveness of any 



336 PEASANT LIFE IN GEEMANT. 

genteel family if they should be surprised by a friendly call at 
any other hour. Then the ladies are sitting up for calls and at 
no other tir^e may be in fix, and of course it may happen that 
few are a« home, but this we could never consider any great 
calamity, as a card answers all the purposes of such a call where 
there is only time to see how people are dressed, and ask " how 
they find themselves." If it is summer, you do not find your- 
self in a very agreeable temperament, unless you are among 
those who " keep a carriage " to ride on such hot summer days. 
But the finding of the people before you can ask them how 
they find themselves, is still more disagreeable. Nay, seldom 
is the name upon the door, and upon every floor there will be 
a family. You knock upon the first one you see, and some one 
calls out " herein " — come in. You open the door and see two 
or three people, who look up in great astonishment, wondering 
who you are. You ask if such a family lives here, they tell you 
" nein, oben," no, above. You ascend another staircase and repeat 
the same experience, and after three or four, you find those 
you seek. Often the staircases are dark and dirty, as it is the 
duty of each family only to attend to one. In the suburbs of 
the cities, the modern houses of the wealthy have highly fur- 
nished and elegant entrance halls and staircases to correspond 
with the interior, and we have seen the ivy creeping upon the 
bannisters and over the walls. Where there is only one family 
in the house, the outer door has a bell attached to it, which 
rings when the door is opened. The parlor is usually on the 
second floor. Whoever calls, finds his way to the room he seeks, 
though on the way he will perhaps see two or three heads 
peeped out at different doors to learn who has entered. From 
some of them he learns where to go, and when he reaches the 
salon, knocks, and hears " herein" which he obeys by walking 



ETIQUETTE. 337 

in, and whoever is there rises to receive him. We never knew 
any one to open the door, though there might be half a dozen 
children with " nothing else to do." 

They are under the impression in Germany, that there is no 
politeness or ceremony of any kind in America ; but most well- 
bred Americans would be amazed at the little there is in Ger- 
many. A lady told us how disturbed her husband was at the 
ill-manners of the people in hotels at table. She had the idea 
that all Americans ate very much like pigs. When we came to 
sit at the same gentleman's table, we wondered how it could 
disturb him if they did, as there was not the slightest order or 
ceremony observed towards guests, or towards eatables, by 
those around him. Each one put his own knife in the butter, 
and the children reached this way and that, and arose out of 
their chairs to help themselves, in a manner we had never seen 
in barbarous America. Children with unwashed hands, day 
after day, and week after week, handled the bread and cheese 
without mercy, and now and then dipped their fingers in the 
molasses and drew them over the table-cloth to their mouths, 
and this at the table of a gentleman, who held the highest posi- 
tion a gentleman can hold in the land. Yet the same children 
would be punished, if they failed to say " good morning " and 
" good night," on rising and retiring. 

Not the least amusing characteristic of German etiquette is 
the custom for men to kiss each other. We have often seen, 
in the public street, and in depots and upon boats, two aged, 
bearded men, express their love for each other in this way, 
bestowing a kiss upon each cheek, and sometimes an additional 
one upon the lips. We thought it very ridiculous, and quite 
disgusting at first, but when we came to reason with ourselves 
upon the matter, and ask why not ? why should not men kiss 

15 



338 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

each other as well as women ? we had no answer, and do not 
intend to waste any logic in proving to them or any one else 
that it is not a fit and comely way of manifesting their affec- 
tion ; but when each has to remove a pipe from his mouth 
for the purpose, and stroke away the long moustache, we could 
not help thinking sweetness no part of the ingredient of such 
kisses. 

Among the upper classes, the announcing of a betrothal is 
a formal ceremony attended with manifestations that strike 
one as having no lack of the honey of life. At a dinner party 
given in honor of one soon to be a bride, there were present a 
young gentleman and lady, who, during all the time, had com- 
ported themselves with the most becoming dignity, without any 
appearance of special interest in each other. When the din- 
ner was nearly finished, the father of the young lady arose and 
said he was happy to announce to the assembled guests to 
whom he had the honor of speaking, that his daughter was 
betrothed. The young man then arose and greeted her, her 
health was drunk by all, and then the two seated themselves 
together, and commenced a series of the most ravishing 
caresses, which are never seen in other countries but in the 
most private circle. Those who are betrothed are expected at 
all times to practice the same, and on all public occasions to 
devote themselves entirely to each other, with arms entwiued, 
and " kisses long and sweet." We see no objections to the 
custom, but were curious to know if the same publicity of en- 
dearments continued after marriage. "Oh, no," said the lady 
we asked, " they are not continued either publicly or privately. 
We always know a married pair in company by the distance 
they keep from each other, and those who are betrothed by 
the proximity." 



BETROTHALS. 339 

In Saxony and some other provinces of southern Germany, 
the bridal dress is presented by the bridegroom, and arrives in 
a little basket adorned with ribbons and flowers, which the fair 
one uncovers, to find dress, veil, wreath, shoes and stockings, 
all in the most recherche style and arrangement, but there is 
nothing to indicate that crinoline is considered necessary ! 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

AMUSEMENTS PALMERS — SHRINES MARIAZELLE — MARIA TAFEL 

BLACK LADY OF ALTOTTING ST. WENCESLAUS — EASTER MONDAY 

IN VIENNA WHITSUNTIDE IN FRANKFORT ON THE MAINE — 

CONFIRMATION CHRISTMAS. 

The festival days are so many in Germany that we are not 
sure that we shall be able to number them or call them all by 
name. In the Catholic portion of the country, where we 
mostly sojourned, they come much oftener, and are kept much 
more scrupulously than among the Protestants at the north, 
where peculiarities, especially in the cities, are fast disappear- 
ing, and English manners and customs taking their place. To 
some we have already alluded, as the Feast of Consecration, 
which occurs in every Catholic village once a year, and in each 
one on a different Sunday, and belongs especially to the Catho- 
lic church. One sees very often in traveling a little chapel far 
away on a hill, so secluded that it is difficult to imagine whence 
the worshipers come, if it be its purpose to accommodate 
those who meet for prayer and praise. But we soon learn that 
they do not mind distance. There is a winding path that leads 
to the top of the hill, and on any festal day a long procession 
may be seen wending their way, in the performance of a kind 
of pilgrimage, to a spot they believe to have some peculiar 
recommendation as a place of worship. We may also some- 
times see two or four weary-looking wanderers, with a bundle 

840 



PALMEES SHRINES. 341 

hanging upon a stick across their shoulders, on their way to 
some far distant city or church, or consecrated spot, in accord- 
ance with the spirit of the old Crusaders, or rather of the 
ancient Palmers, who enlisted not in the wars, but with staff 
and often with naked feet, traversed thousands of miles to offer 
up their devotions, or ask some favor which they hoped to 
procure, because of the penance they had performed. The 
land is full of legends of these Palmers, who were often princes 
in disguise, or knights hoping for a glimpse of their lady-loves 
as they knocked at some door and begged an alms or night's 
lodging, which no family . high or low, was at liberty to refuse. 
Young maidens, also, performed a pious service by washing 
their feet, sore and travel-stained ; but we do not know whether 
they followed the example so far as to wipe them with the hair 
of their heads. Yet it was then and is still the custom to 
gather sweet-scented herbs, to soak in the water which is to 
bathe the feet of guest or stranger, and fair damsels hastened 
with nimble feet to pluck the most fragrant leaves and roots, 
to soothe the pain of those who were termed holy ivanderers, 
and whilst they prepared and applied them there was ample 
time for words of recognition, for vows of unchanging fidelity, 
and sometimes for more tender protestations of endearment. 

Every Catholic country has its shrine, which is resorted to 
oy kings and nobles even at the present day, and in all the pro- 
vinces are many of less importance, which are repaired to by 
the people on all occasions, when they need special aid or for- 
giveness. The one most distinguished in Austria is called the 
Mariazelle, and is situated in the midst of the Styrian moun- 
tains ; and to it the inhabitants from every part of the king- 
dom come in throngs, from May till September, and even 
amidst the snows of winter, it is not quite deserted. In Vienua, 
at the time appointed for the pilgrimage, a notice is affixed to 



342 s PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

all the church doors, and those who would join the procession 
exhorted to be ready, when, amidst the ringing of bells and the 
fluttering of banners, a pious, and at the same time joyous 
group is seen in every street, which, as they proceed, becomes 
a grand procession, and few sounds are more impressive than 
the chant of a band of pilgrims on their march, as it comes 
upon the ear amidst the lonely solitudes of the high Alps, 
among cliffs and precipices. The simple peasants of Austria 
and Bavaria are no mean choristers ; and the deep melody of 
their voices, the solemness of the scene, and the earnestness 
of the manner of those who thus raise the hymn in the grand- 
est temple of the God of nature, serve to increase the effect 
which it produces on the mind. It is not difficult to believe 
those sincere who engage in these exercises of piety. 

But some of the after scenes are similar to those which 
attend the camp meetings in the woods of America. The inns 
in the neighborhood are quite insufficient for the accommoda- 
tion of the multitudes, who are obliged to resort to the primi- 
tive bed of our first parents, and be covered like the " poor 
lost children of the wood," on whom the robins took pity, and 
buried in leaves. Those who are able to find a lodging and to 
pay for it, must still be content to share a bed with another, 
and perhaps with half a dozen, and thus, indoors and out, the 
high and low, the rich and poor, men and women, are mingled 
together in most unceremonious and most unaristocratic asso- 
ciation, and their songs and revelries in the end are very dif- 
ferent from the hymns and ejaculations which are heard as 
they set out. 

A certain number of villages unite for one procession, that 
which each shall join being desiguated by the church, so that 
eighty are formed during the summer, and the number of pil- 
grims during a season often reaches 100,000. Many of them 



MARIAZELLE MAEIA TAFEL. 3i3 

have some malady, of which they wish to be cured, and believe 
the intercession of the Virgin will avail with Him who heals 
all diseases. Mariazdle is translated, " Mary in the cell," the 
image of the Virgin occupying a small chapel, which was ori- 
ginally a rude cell built by a priest who came among the people 
in the eleventh century, to preach and to teach. Afterwards 
a margrave of Moravia, in the twelfth century, being- 
troubled with the gout, and warned in a dream, that if he 
would make a pilgrimage to "Mary in the cell" he would be 
cured, repaired thither with his wife and was healed. In grati- 
tude he built over the image a stone chapel, which still remains. 
The image itself is said to be seven hundred years old, and is 
of the rudest description, being of lime-tree wood, and painted 
black, and only eighteen inches high. She is seated in a chair, 
holding the infant Saviour in her arms, clothed in the costliest 
stuffs, and glittering with jewels and gems. The pilgrims 
walk about on their knees, and always in the direction of the 
sun. The gifts of those who make offerings and sacrifices are 
hung around, and are gleaming with gold, and silver, and 
diamonds, from empress, prince, and peasant, who purchase 
with them indulgence and forgiveness for the past or permis- 
sion for the future. 

In another village, in a different direction, is a shrine, de- 
nominated Maria Tafel, or Mary of the Little Table, concerning 
which the tradition is, that upon an oak tree stood an im- 
age of the Virgin, and beneath the spreading boughs the 
peasantry of the surrounding country were accustomed to 
assemble once a year to pray for an abundant harvest, and 
enjoy a feast at a stone table. But though surmounted by an 
image of holiness and power, the oak did at last fall to decay, 
and a peasant passing by, thought it an unsightly thing, which 



844 PEASANT LIFE LN GERMANY. 

it would be doing good service to destroy. But when he lifted 
his axe for the purpose, instead of hitting the tree, as he in- 
tended, it fell upon his foot. On looking up he saw, for the 
first time, the image, and now knew he had committed an act 
of sacrilege. But his penitence procured him the pardon of the 
Virgin, and her prayers the healing of his wound. A chmch 
was afterwards built upon the spot, and is now the resort of 
thousands of pilgrims annually, who have faith in " the inter- 
cession of the saints." 

In France the most noted shrine is that of Notre Dame, in 
Marseilles, to which all who are disposed to make pilgrimages 
in that country wend their way; and thousands who cannot 
visit her there, carry her image with them, that they may bow 
before it to say their prayers. In the ships of the Mediterra- 
nean, it may often be seen in the cabin of the captain, with a 
lamp and burning incense before it, as a protection against the 
fury of the winds and waves. We have often seen in America 
the celebration of St. Patrick's day by the Irish, as this is the 
Patron Saint of Erin, and in their own land the pilgrimages are 
made to his shrine. In Spain they throng to St. James of 
Compostella, and in Switzerland to " Our Lady of Einsie- 
deln I" 

In Bavaria may be seen the Black Lady of Allotting, and the 
Shrine of Nepomuc in Prague, the latter being more expen- 
sively decorated than any other in the world. There are said 
to be thirty-seven hundredweight of silver upon the shrine 
alone. The body of the saint is inclosed in one of crystal, and 
this is inclosed in one of silver, borne aloft by angels nearly as 
large as life, of the same solid material, and four others, sus- 
pended in the air, weigh nine hundred and ten marks of 
silver. Here may also be seen the chapel of St. Wenceslaus, 



OUE BLACK LADY OF ALTOTTESTG. 345 

the patron saint of cattle, not only in Bohemia, but all south- 
ern Germany. His image is almost as common as that of 
the Virgin, in little nooks by the wayside, upon the balconies 
of the stables, and in the churchyards, and, like them, also 
hideous to behold. But the chapel dedicated to his saiutship 
is inlaid with topaz, amethysts, and other precious stones. 
Alas, how much money is devoted in Germany to honoring 
the dead, that should be expended upon the living ! 

But Our Black Lady of Altbtting seems to have been the 
longest an object of devotion, as her spiritual empire upon 
earth dates back to 696, and the gold, gifts, and frankincense, 
that have been poured out a her feet, bear the names of kings 
and potentates, from Charlemagne and Otto to Pope Pius VI. 
Here, as at Mariazdle, the Virgin and child are both black, 
without its derogating at all from the homage that is paid them. 
They are covered with gold, silver, and brocade, diamonds, 
and other costly gems, testifying to the sacrifices with which 
the rich and powerful have been willing to purchase her favor, 
and still thousands come from the most distant parts of the 
kingdom to keeel at her feet. 

One can easily imagine what gala scenes these festive throngs 
must make, and give to the countries in which they take place 
the appearance of a perpetual holiday, which we cannot help 
believing, also, might be spent in a more profitable way. 

Another annual festival is that of Easter Monday, but this 
is also observed among Protestants, and especially in Eng- 
land. It has been more than we could do to learn the fast days 
and feast days of all the year, and their times and seasons; 
but Easter begins in April, and on Easter Sunday begin the 
holidays. Those who do not go to church at any other time. 
may be seen there at this and on Easter Monday; the gardens 

15* 



346 PEASANT LIFE IN GEEMANT. 

salons, and promenades, are thronged with pleasure-seekers. 
But more especially is this festival observed in Vienna, when 
the Prater, the largest park belonging to the city, exhibits a 
scene of gaiety and finery not elsewhere to be seen. From the 
highest to the lowest all come forth; the emperor in his robes, 
and the peasant in his rags. Every variety of regimentals, 
of every nation under heaven, gleaming swords and waving 
plumes, are mingled in one grand cavalcade. 

The Prater consists of little islands formed in the Danube, 
which break its course and divide it into many small streams, 
which wind round and round, finding their way as they can 
for nearly four miles, before they unite again in the broad flow- 
ing river. There are avenues and promenades and drives in- 
numerable, with sunny nooks and coquettish shadows, little 
forests for shelter, and broad gardens for pleasure, coffee-houses, 
restaurants, and everything man can devise for amusement. 
But the peasantry are not to be seen as a part of the promiscu- 
ous crowd. They form a separate assembly, upon a different 
part of the same grounds, but where they are not less free to 
enjoy themselves in their own way. Theirs is called the 
Wurste Prater, because the staple article of sale and consump- 
tion, as we have seen to be in many other places, is sausages — 
Wurste. One might think it a regular sausage fair, and it is 
nearly the same upon every Sunday and other holiday with them. 
There are a hundred booths hung with all possible forms and 
varieties, and one continuous stream of smoke from the pans of 
frying sausages. Every peasant you meet will have in his hand 
a piece of black bread and sausage, and these will be the con 
tents of every plate, with a pot of beer by its side; all around 
upon the grass are groups in families or in cliques, and beneath 
temporary tents, dancing in one, a juggler and his wondering 



WHITSUNTIDE. 347 

congregation in another, a circus in the distance, and laughing, 
singing, and chatting, everywhere. 

Those of high degree may be seen wandering through these 
merry crowds, and often partaking of the humble fare; and 
deer from the neighboring park come fearlessly up to be fed 
from the hand, and in the evening the hunter's merry horn sum- 
mons them to their evening meal, when a whole herd, not less 
graceful nor beautiful than the fair ladies of the garden, may 
be seen playing and ambulating upon the greensward. In the 
evening, fireworks make the whole one brilliantly illuminated 
scene, and not till far into the night have the princes returned 
to their palaces, the villagers to their humble homes, and the 
moon is left to reign supreme over the stillness which it seems 
almost sacrilege to break, when she sits in her queenly beauty 
in the blue vault of heaven. 

Still more general and more merry is the festival of Whit- 
suntide, which occurs six weeks after Easter, and continues two 
days. It is the only occasion during the summer when every 
description of labor ceases, and every laborer is free ; and this 
is the same in England and all the Protestant countries of the 
north, as well as the Catholic countries of the south. It is the 
universal holiday, and is observed very much like the Fourth of 
July in America. Whole cities empty themselves into the 
country, and the thoroughfares iu every direction are thronged 
with crowds in carriages and on foot. The rail-cars are filled, 
and the fields and forests are alive with the gay multitude. It 
was in Frankfort-ou-the-Maine that we first looked upon the 
scene. Two miles from the city is a large open Platz in a forest, 
filled with seats and tables, and made beautiful by all the in- 
ventions of art. Restaurants and coffee-houses are near, and 



348 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY^ 

every day, from May to October, may be seen a goodly number 
of city idlers, and upon all Sundays a crowd leisurely sipping 
their coffee, walking and chatting in the open air. But on 
Whitsuntide there is an immense concourse, and some of the 
features of the festival reminded us of a grand muster, as they 
were wont to be held in America. Hogsheads and barrels of 
beer are standing here and there under the trees, and the fau- 
cet turned for all who would refresh themselves at such a foun- 
tain. Tables are loaded with all manner of good cheer, yet so 
dense is the mass of living people that it is almost impossible 
to move. The pleasure of making one in such a crowd we 
could not well understand, as it was hot and dusty, and no 
provision possible for the comfort of such a multitude. Yet it 
is one of the festivals of the Church, and must be kept ; and 
among the peasantry of the surrounding country, not to go to 
the Forest on Whitsuntide, would be a great neglect of venera- 
ble and sacred institutions. A lady remarked that they would 
sell their beds and go without food for a week, rather than fail 
of the means to come from far and near on this occasion. 
Frankfort professes to be a free city, and is governed by a bur- 
gomaster, instead of a prince or duke, but not less stately and 
lumbering is his equipage as it rolls along the great Strasse. 
There, too, is the carriage of the Rothschilds, "black as jet, the 
horses also black, and liveried servants in black with gold 
bands, appropriate insignia of such a master. But there are not 
here, as there are certain to be at an American muster, drunk- 
enness and coarse revelry, noise, and angry confusion. Wine 
and beer do not have the same effect in this climate as in that, 
and the police are more numerous, more watchful, and much 
more feared. Whatever of pleasure they find is enjoyed 



CONFIRMATION. 349 

quietly, and at eventide they begin to disperse, leaving the 
old woods grand and still, as if no mirth had ever echoed among 
their solitudes. 

In the country, and among the peasantry everywhere, they 
dance around the May pole at Whitsuntide, as in England on 
the first of May, and maidens awake in the morning to find 
their windows and doors hung with wreaths of 'evergreen and 
flowers, signs of their lovers' truth. Not one, but many poles 
may be seen in every village, dressed from top to bottom, and 
also little arbors in front of every door, called lovers' bowers, 
in which they sit and sing, or dance and play. They seek 
everywhere, for this occasion, birchen boughs, and if the festi- 
val comes and the leaves of the birch are not yet green, there 
is great lamentation, and if there is only the slightest appear- 
ance of green upon the twigs, they are preferred to all other 
trees of the forest to hang over the windows and adorn their 
rooms. Connected with it is also the sport of making wreaths 
of nettles, which are sometimes placed in beds, or slyly thrown 
upon those who slumber too late in the morning. At Easter 
the children make themselves merry by hiding eggs in the 
grass, when there is a great hunt for them, and great glee 
when they are found. 

Though not among the feasts, yet as an important occasion, 
and celebrated with special ceremonies, that of Confirmation 
cannot be excluded. It is the law of the state in every em- 
pire, kingdom, principality, and dukedom, that all persons 
must be members of the Church, and, somewhere between the 
ages of fourteen and sixteen, every child must be confirmed, and 
thus received into full communion. Three years previous to 
this period, the pastor of the congregation where their parents 
attend worship, commences a course of religious instruction, 



350 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

which is only continued on Sunday afternoons during the first 
year, but in the two succeeding years, two or three times a 
week. The catechism is the first book of study, and afterwards 
the Bible, with which they become very familiar, being obliged 
to commit a great portion to memory, to compare texts, and 
repeat those of the same import in different parts of the Old 
and New Testaments, and tell quickly the chapter and verse 
where every one is to be found. This catechizing is the same 
in Catholic as in Protestant provinces, but Catholic children 
are expected to come to the confessional at the age of 
eleven. 

The knowledge of Scripture is quite wonderful among intel- 
ligent children, but before they can be confirmed they must all 
repair to the Superintendent among Protestants, and to the 
Bishop among Catholics, to be examined as to their fitness ; 
and if he thinks them still too young, or without sufficient ap- 
preciation of what is required of them, they must wait another 
year. In cities, and among the higher classes, the dress for 
the occasion must be either white or black, and is usually 
black. When we were present there were thirty or forty girls, 
all in white muslin, without bonnets. The church was dressed 
with green and wreaths of flowers, and especially adorned 
about the altar. The clergyman stood within a railing, and 
called the names of each, first the girls and then the boys, 
placing his hand upon the head of each, aid repeating the 
words of consecration. The parents are required to be pres- 
ent, and usually the friends and acquaintances make great 
effort to be present also. If they receive the communion the 
same day, they must dress in black, as no one can partake of 
the emblems in any other color. But in the country, where 
the peasantry have a peculiar costume, they are avowed to re- 



CHRISTMAS. 351 

tain this, but whatever dress is worn at this time, and always 
at the communion, must be kept for this only, and not dese- 
crated by common use. 

No one is permitted in the whole country to practise any 
profession, or work at any trade, or enter upon any business 
whatever, even making cigars or selling pins, who cannot show 
the testimony of his pastor to his having been confirmed ; so 
that it is to him like his passport or certificate of citizenship, 
and gone through as he pays his taxes, or serves the required 
period in the army. Often they never afterwards commune or 
enter a church, and in Prussia have the utmost hatred to the 
government that requires of them such hypocrisy. 

Among the girls it is the passport to young ladyhood and 
its privileges. Before they are confirmed they are little girls 
in short dresses, but immediately afterwards assume the long 
skirts of woman, go to balls, and commence dancing and 
" chatting with the beaux." It is therefore the much-desired 
and longed-for period, and looked upon merely as what intro- 
duces them to gaiety and happiness. Of balls and dances we 
have spoken sufficiently elsewhere. They are the one grand 
and never-failing amusement in all Germany, merely because 
they are the only common ground of meeting for boys and 
girls, men and women, to become acquainted and make 
matches. 

Yet above all stands Christmas as the grand national fete, 
and though it is celebrated in England, and now, to some ex- 
tent, in America, it is only in Germany that it is universal, and 
the love of its festal joys woven into the hearts of all the people. 
This is the home and heart fete, to the pleasures of which 
the old never become indifferent, and which the young welcome 
with a delight which has no equal. Yet the churches are not 



352 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

trimmed in Germany on Christmas day, as in England and 
America. There is public service, but it is not made more 
especially attractive on that day than any other. The peculiar 
attraction is at home. 

In cities a Christmas tree is erected in every dwelling, how- 
ever humble, and we cannot understand how so universal a de- 
vastation of the forests every year does not become a serious 
evil. They are of all sizes, from three feet to twenty in height, 
and as the forests are not common property in Germany, every 
one must be paid for, and costs from twenty-five cents to three 
dollars, according to size, and also according to the price asked 
for them by government. But sometimes families who live 
far from woods, and cannot afford to buy a tree every year, 
plant one in a large box, which in the summer is allowed to 
stand out doors, and in the winter is removed to the cellar 
being brought forth only upon Christmas week. The manner 
of trimming it and making all the arrangements is similar 
everywhere, in some respects, and yet varies in every family ac- 
cording to the means and taste of the individuals. In the 
south, too, there are some essential differences from anything 
which is done in the north. It is not always observed on the 
same evening, but any evening during Christmas week, and in 
families, first in one house and then in another. We hap- 
pened to pass from the extreme south to the extreme north 
during Christmas week, and so observed the peculiarities among 
many people. 

In the southern cities little booths make their appearance 
again upon the Platz, as in the time of the fairs, and are filled 
with all things beautiful and fair to look upon, with things curi- 
ous, and things monstrous, and things meant to be divine. 
Everywhere are to be seen little stacks of what appear to be 



CHRISTMAS. 353 

stick-brooms of dark brown, or black color, tied in the middle, 
and making a stiff brush at both ends. What special mission 
have these at a Christmas festival ? They are for the Pelz-niclc- 
ds to punish disobedient children. 

A long time before Christmas, usually the first week in 
December, there enters a messenger into every dwelling, who is 
the especial terror of all the children, not only because his 
whole aspect is terrific, but also because he seems to be 
acquainted with all their lives, and to know whether they have 
been good and obedient, and therefore deserving of a merry 
Christmas, or whether they must be punished by having no 
gifts, and be condemned to solitude during the time others are 
happy together. At the north he is called the Knecht Ru- 
precht, and is considered to be the messenger of Christ, sent by 
him to make these inquiries and promises. To those too young 
to understand that it is all a farce, he is looked upon as a gen- 
uine prophet, and what he says either fills them with the great- 
est joy or causes them the greatest sorrow. Among many 
families the custom is given up, as the children are so fright- 
ened, that serious consequences sometimes follow, and it is 
seldom that a child for any fault is deprived of his Christmas 
pleasure. 

On Christmas eve a good prophet comes in the form of a 
blooming maiden, dressed in white, who sometimes pronounces 
forgiveness to those whom Pelz-nickels has condemned, and in 
obedience to her command the door opens and exhibits to them 
the little world of treasures that have been prepared. The 
Christmas tree that we saw was fourteen feet in height, and 
eight in circumference. The last thing before the door opens 
is to light the candles, which are only three or four inches in 
length, and of all colors, suspended by slight threads to the 



354 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

twigs. Besides these, are little silver balls and spangles, with 
every variety of toy and knick-nack, all of bright colors. 
Under the tree was a miniature landscape, formed by moss and 
trees of liliputian dimensions — mountains in the back ground, a 
valley and meadow, a silver brook, and little hills. The prin- 
cipal feature was a stable, and in the manger the Christ child 
with the mother, and Joseph watching by. Far off are the 
shepherds on their way to fall down and worship him, and ihe 
star gleams above that guides them to the spot. In the gar- 
den leaps and sparkles a little fountain, and horses, cows and 
sheep, are browsing in the fields. Our words may help the 
imagination to picture the scene, but a description can give 
but a faint impression of the reality. 

Through the centre of the room is a long table covered with 
presents for the little folks, and standing by the walls are 
smaller ones, with something special for each. When the three 
hundred lights, and two thousand spangles shed their radiance 
over all, it is a fairy land, and we can scarcely believe we are in 
the ordinary world. But the clapping and dancing and singing 
of the children are still the most beautiful of all. One little boy 
runs all around, kissing everybody, not at all knowing what 
he is about, only that he is thus relieved of his excess of exhil- 
aration. " Oh, what a beautiful Christmas, what a beautiful 
Christmas 1" he exclaims, even after he is asleep, when weariness 
and slumber cannot restrain him from clapping his hands for 

joy- 
Nuremberg is the great toy mart, as we have said, and 
nearly all that is especially fine and beautiful has come from 
there. Upon the table may be seen a Swiss village compre- 
hending in the area of a square yard all that one sees in 
a veritable Dorf. The houses are perfect in their construe- 



CHRISTMAS. 355 

tion, and in the stable and cow yard the hay and straw are 
strewn about as if veritable animals were there, the loft is filled, 
horses are in the stalls, the curry-comb hangs over head, the 
bucket to give them drink, and the stick broom to sweep the 
floor. 

In another direction is a forest and a hunting scene, with 
stags and hounds in full gallop through the woods. In the 
distance a fortress just scaled by the enemy, and on an open 
field a battle, the men being made to shoot and to run by curi- 
ous machinery, just as the flash of arms fills the air with smoke. 
One little boy finds himself in a suit of armor, another in regi- 
mentals, and for all, are added also, articles of dress, dolls and 
baby-houses for the girls, and more costly tokens of love or 
charity for their elders. 

Is it the same every year, we ask ? The same, with sufficient 
variation for surprise ; but the peculiar joy is always the same, 
for it comes to the parents freighted with remembrances of 
their own happy childhood, and in many houses may be seen a 
glass-case with shelves, upon which are arranged the gifts of 
years, or enough to mark each season, and call up the past 
with its hours of love and pleasure. In one we saw the 
first toy the mother received in her infancy, and now she had 
by its side the first over which several children had crowed svitfa 
delight. 

For weeks before all are busy with their secret preparations, 
and each one receives something that is wrought by the hands 
of the giver. But not the least pleasant characteristic of 
Christmas time is, that the poor are universally remembered. 
Every family of good position has one or two for whose joys it 
cares on this occasion, and whose homes are brightened with 



356 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

gifts from generous and loving hands. Some who are rich give 
in Christmas presents, of all kinds, thousands of dollars, and we 
knew a person who bestowed fifteen thousand in charity in one 
year. In Hamburg, which is one of the richest cities of Ger- 
many, half a million of dollars are sometimes spent in this way, 
which we must think is carrying it to excess. 

Among the peasantry, a Christmas tree is never used, and 
they do not give presents. They have a dinner which is the 
best of the year, and at which they have for variety white 
bread, though not always, the same in other respects as it is 
in England, and always a dance in the evening. In some 
provinces there is service in the church very early in the morn- 
ing. In a small village in the kingdom of Hanover, we arose 
at the summons of the bell, at five in the morning, and were 
rewarded by one of the most curious exhibitions we have seen. 
Every person entered carrying a lighted tallow candle, and the 
clergyman's family; and some others of a higher class than pea- 
santry, bore one in each hand, or had them carried by their 
servants. In this way the church was lighted, and when all 
had assembled, we saw every woman and young girl in uniform, 
which was a dress of dark stuff and a fine lace cape or a sort 
of under kerchief, coming down to a point in front with a 
double ruffle round the neck, a little lace cap of the same, and 
a white apron. How perfectly neat and pretty they looked ; 
but we marveled to see so fine lace upon people whose sur- 
roundings in every other respect indicated the greatest 
poverty. Then we learned that this little town was famous 
for the manufacture of this article, and had supplied many 
a. dress and kerchief for the queen and royal ladies of Eng- 
land. It takes the little leisure time of many years to make 



CHURCH SERVICE. 357 

what they wear themselves, and they provide it especially 
for their confirmation, and only wear it on this occasion, at com- 
munion and Christmas. The same articles are often handed 
down through many generations. 

When the church service was finished, each one blew out 
his candle and retired. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

AMUSEMENTS CONTINUED OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY CHANGE OF 

MANNERS IN THE NEW WORLD PEASANT MANNERS IN THU- 

RINGIA FEAST OF THE GRASKONIG OR GRASSKING WEDDING 

FESTIVITIES COSTUME UNIVERSAL FONDNESS FOR SPORT 

INQUISITIVENESS PENURIOUSNESS. 

Nothing amazes the people in Germany more than that we 
are able to live without all these amusements. " You have no 
holiday but Sunday," exclaims a lady, and when we tell her 
this is a ho-ly, and not a hol-y-day, she is still more amazed. 

"Why, what can you do all the afternoon and evening," 
asks a young man, " if you do not ride, or walk, or dance ?" 
Alas ! we should hardly dare to tell them how Sunday is spent 
with us, any more than we should dare to tell Americans exactly 
how Sunday is spent here. " And you have no festal days ?" 
asks an old lady. "Only Thanksgiving and the Fourth of 
July." " But that is a national celebration, and not a feast 
for God." We could hardly prevent a smile as we answered, 
there seemed to be little thought of God in the way they kept 
Sunday, or other festal days. " Oh, yes," she said, " we go to 
church in the morning." Yes, and the more we see of them, 
and talk with them, we are sure they are really pious and 
devout. Their faith is not less orthodox than that of Ameri- 
cans, and as great a proportion, perhaps, are sincere and heart- 
renewed Christians. That they differ about the manner of 

358 



OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY. 359 

spending Sunday evening, and in many other things, is not 
proof that their religion is not sound. They will tell you on 
good authority that Luther danced on Sunday, and joined 
heartily in all the sports of which they are so fond. 

Having heard the origin of these feasts, and seen how they 
are inwoven with the life of the people, and associated with all 
the events of their history, we also see them in a different light 
than when we merely looked on, knowing and thinking no far- 
ther than the present moment, and wondering, as every one 
must, that a whole people, old and young, should enter so 
heartily into sports that the children of other countries consider 
almost too trivial for their amusement. The parents and grand- 
parents relate around the fireside the stories which have come 
down to them for centuries, and thus the links are kept un- 
broken of a long chain of family and national history, as 
precious and glorious to them as the deeds of our fathers at 
Bunker Hill and Saratoga. 

It is not less remarkable that when they go to America they 
give them all up. The chain is broken. They cannot worship 
in the same church, cannot dance on the same green. They 
have now a new world and life before them, — a new future to 
make for their children. They have also enough to employ 
their minds and energies, in learning about the new government 
in which they are so proud to feel they may take a share, and 
in teaching their children the responsibilities of their new posi- 
tion. They remember the fatherland with the deepest rever- 
ence and affection; but it would only be a farce for a village here 
and there, or a few families to try to keep up the customs of the 
old world upon the prairie and in the wilderness. We often 
hear it spoken of by their friends, how strange it is they become 
so soon Americans in every thought and feeling, and so attached 
to their new homes. But being now quite thoroughly acquainted 



360 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

with both worlds, we do not wonder at all at the love they bear 
"to the land to which they go ;" and no less do we wonder at 
the love of all her children for the fatherland, which they 
leave. The tone with which every German speaks this one 
word has in it a depth and meaning which no other lips can 
convey, which, perhaps, no other heart can exactly feel. It 
has more than once brought tears to our eyes. How long they 
have been a people — how long they have lived upon the same 
soil — how much they have suffered for themselves and others, 
all tending to root their hearts to every hill and valley, rock 
and fern. Our fatherland ! we do not wonder it is so dear. 

Yet it is true that many of the old festal days are no longer 
observed even here, that a new life is springing up among the 
people on their own soil. Each revolution disturbs the old 
order of things and awakes them from their dreams. Espe- 
cially did the turmoil of 1848 demolish forever many a festal 
board and many a long-cherished monument of other days. 
Railroads, steamboats, and telegraphs also have an influence, 
though they operate much slower here than elsewhere, because 
they are all government machines, which the people cannot 
wield for themselves. By various causes they have been re- 
duced in half a century from three hundred to thirty-five differ- 
ent states, and never themselves give up the hope of one united 
fatherland. Yet the districts where quite distinct customs 
obtain are still as many as two hundred, and there are still to 
be observed as many, perhaps more varieties in dress, that 
give to those who wear them something peculiar and charac- 
teristic. In the observation of feasts there is a general resem- 
blance, and yet in each little Gau or county there will be some- 
thing entirely its own, which is with reluctance given up, and 
which others do not seem disposed to adopt. 

The same is true of the dwellings. While there are four 



MANNEKS AND COSTUMES IN THUKINGIA. 361 

principal forms — north, south, east, and west, there are also 
slight variations, though these are by no means so numerous as 
those of dress and merry-makings. In the east, among the Scla- 
vonic population, the houses are square, and have out-houses 
separate, small, for each separate purpose. In the Black Forest 
we have seen the great overhanging roof, shutting out all the 
light as well as air, and the cattle, sheep, and pigs, a part of 
the family. In the Thuringian forest they stand mostly apart 
from each other, with a little garden, a May tree around which 
to dance, a well with an old " oaken bucket," if upon the plain, 
and an aqueduct and Brunnen, if upon the hill. Within is the 
family room, the kitchen, the stable, one or two sleeping rooms, 
and the open place under the roof. The great porcelain stove 
is the soul of the house, around which, summer and winter, 
day and night, gather all joy and all life. It warms the cattle, 
who nestle at its back ; the dog and the cat, who creep beneath ; 
and the family, who form a circle around. Cages for birds are 
hanging before the windows and upon the wall, and in the 
spring a wire coop is made beneath the stove, divided into 
compartments for the chickens, goslings, and little pigs, who 
come too early to be warmed by the sun, having the gift of 
foresight, we presume, that tells them it matters little among 
their hospitable masters whether they make their appearance 
at one time of the year or another. Notwithstanding this in- 
congruous multitude there are a neatness and order which are 
not to be found among some other clans. The wooden tables are 
scoured to snowy whiteness, and the copper kettles and pewter 
spoons dazzle upon the walls, where they hang from little 
wooden shelves with holes just large enough to admit each 
handle. Under the little lookiug-glass hangs by a string the 
family comb and the almanac, and the days of the month and 

16 



362 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

week are kept with chalk over the door. As we have said 
elsewhere, these are the manufactories for the toys that supply 
all Christendom ; and here each member of the family is busy 
all winter upon whatever is suited to his capacity. Close by 
the stove hangs the bellows, and against the wall stand long 
wooden benches, which serve instead of chairs. The Thurin- 
gian is said to unite all the best qualities of north and south, 
being remarkably true-hearted and hospitable, reflecting and 
diligent, yet entering with zest into all scenes of merriment; as 
one of their authors expresses it, "there is ever a deep 
thought in their heads and ever a light song upon their lips." 
They are the richest in sagas and superstitions, and, besides the 
usual great festivals, have many peculiar to themselves. 

On Christmas eve they wend their way in solemn procession 
to a pyramid of stones which has been erected upon the top of 
a hill, each with a torch in his hand, and singing Christmas 
songs. After a few times marching around the pyramid, they 
all cast upon it their torches, and return singing from a book 
by the light of candles and lanterns, musicians accompanying 
them with their instruments. At twelve o'clock at night all 
the bells of the city or village ring in concert, then all the 
people sing, alternating in this way three times, when a dance 
closes the solemnity. 

In Pfingsten week is celebrated the feast of the Graskonig — 
Grass-king — in one of the oldest market towns, in consequence 
of a legend which relates that Boniface built here the first 
chapel, and to work a miracle in favor of the truth thrust his 
cane into the earth, which immediately became a wonderful 
and beautiful green tree. The festival commences by dressing 
a youth in green poplar twigs, with a wreath of flowers upon 
his head. He is then placed upon a horse, preceded by two 



WEDDING FESTIVITIES. 363 

riders with white staves, in Sunday dress, and near him two 
youths to guide his horse. In this way, followed by musicians 
also upon horses, they go through the principal streets in the 
midst of a crowd of spectators. First they stop before the 
hall of justice, then at the doors of the nobility and wealthy 
burghers, and receive gifts. Afterwards they proceed to a 
neighboring mountain, where the Grass-king is lifted from his 
horse and stripped of his green robes, when every one hastens 
to obtain a twig, believing that if it is planted upon a flax 
field there will be an abundant crop. 

The wedding festivities are something different from those 
we have before seen, though from these, too, there are few va- 
riations. Among all the peasantry of the north will be fouud 
the grand cavalcade we described, with some slight provincial 
additions. In the Thuringian forest and middle Germany, eine. 
grosse Hochzeit — a grand wedding — is after this fashion : The 
betrothal must take place a half year before, in order that the 
necessary preparations may be made. One ox, many pigs, 
and a whole flock of poultry, must be fatted for the occasion. 
Eight days previous, the kitchen and pantries exhibit a scene 
something like those in New England the week before Thanks- 
giving. The beef must be slaughtered, the chickens must be 
picked, barrels of beer brewed and brandy distilled, and all 
manner of cakes and pastry made, though we never see any- 
thing exactly like a pie in Germany. In these preparations 
the parents of both bride and bridegroom participate, and all 
the near family relations. 

The first time the bans are published in church, the bride 
appears in her wedding dress and wreath. The school-teacher 
)f the village invites the guests, except the god-parents, who 
must be invited by the bride. On entering each dwelling he 



364 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

must exhibit a pocket handkerchief, with a bunch of rosemary, 
which the bride has given him, as the badge of his office. 

If the invitations are given on Tuesday, it is understood the 
wedding festivities will last from five to six days ; if on Thurs- 
day, only from three to four days. The first is the true wed- 
ding day, as on that the marriage ceremony is performed. 
Early in the morning appear before the door of the bride four 
musicians, to play what is called their morning blessing — a 
sacred song, repeated on all such occasions — and then follows 
a dance. Afterwards the guests assemble at breakfast, which 
being finished, all go together at eleven to church, amidst the 
solemn ringing of bells and the performance of music. The 
bride with her wreath and bridal shawl, and the bridegroom in 
his whole new suit from top to toe, a great bouquet upon one 
arm, and on each side the bridesmaids. Then come the parents 
and god-parents, with their remaining guests, each with a new 
handkerchief and bunch of rosemary, which they receive from 
the bride. The procession is closed by an old woman, carrying 
a sack of little cakes, very dry and hard, that she rattles out 
among the crowd. Service is first performed, and immediately 
follows the marriage ceremony. The bride accompanies the 
bridegroom to the altar, keeping as close to him as possible, 
with her eyes almost shut, in order that the people need not 
say she is looking about for another husband. On leaving the 
church, the bridegroom gives to the surrounding guests each a 
piece of silver or copper, and amid the same band of music 
they return to the house, to partake of the wedding dinner. 
Several tables are laid, at the first of which sit the bridal pair, 
and at the last the musicians, who are expected to play and 
not eat. At the beginning of the meal the school-teacher says 
grace, and after it is finished, all join in the song, " To God all 



WEDDING FESTIVITIES. 365 

thanks be given," which seems to be in Germany a sort of na- 
tional hymn, heard on almost every festal occasion. The dinner 
is, first, rice soup, then beef with horse-radish, a ragout of beef 
and pork, a sort of soup of maccaroni, the universal cake with 
Zwetcken, which is washed down with copious draughts of bran- 
dy, then Ricebrei, which is a sort of pudding of boiled rice and 
stewed apples, mashed fine together, and lastly, salad with 
hard-boiled eggs. A slice of each roast, of each sausage, and a 
piece of a certain kind of cake and four fritters, are placed be- 
fore each person as a wedding package, to be carried home, 
which is taken in a basket immediately after the singing of the 
song. Once a plate is passed for a collection for the Church, 
the musicians, the cook, the maid who washes the dishes, and 
the waiters. After dinner begins the dance, during which the 
beer glass circulates freely. At midnight coffee is served, and 
not till daybreak do they cease. 

The second is called the gift day, because the principal cere- 
mony is the giving of gifts. At eleven in the forenoon a soup 
is eateu, after which the bride and bridegroom seat themselves 
at the table, with a clerk, who records each gift and the giver's 
name. First is the Kissen, or pillow of the god-parents, so 
called because originally they gave only a feather pillow with 
the coverings. Now they put a dollar in the plate standing 
upon the table, and some gold into the hand of the bride, in 
the midst of many Gluck wunschen — prayers for long life and 
happiness— after which both stand up, and with tears in their 
eyes, express their thanks, and in a full glass the health of the 
god-parents drink. The same ceremony is repeated by each 
guest, and of course must require many hours. The dinner is 
then finished, each one taking a portion away, as the day be- 
fore, only not so much, and dance and sport finish the evening, 



366 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

when many return home to permit others to come, that all may 
share in th*e Hockzeit feast. 

The third is called the fools 7 day, as it is entirely given to 
games and sport — riddles and jokes — one of which is, to draw 
each other on a wheelbarrow, over stocks and stones, and fill 
the whole country with shouts and laughter. The fourth 
is only a little different from the preceding, and the fifth is the 
trotting day, upon which they all trot homewards, to spend the 
next day in sleep and idleness. 

One cannot help marveling how they can afford so much 
time for merriment ; but as no people work so hard, or accom- 
plish so much, it must be presumed the time is not mis- 
spent. 

The costume among the Thuringians is almost as various as 
the shadows upon their hills and in their valleys. They are 
still subject to masters, instead of owning the little bit of land 
they till, and where this is the case changes are not so frequent. 
In rainy weather the women may be seen with a great manth 
of brown linen, which covers them from top to toe, and which 
in sunshine they roll up and carry under the arm, seldom going 
out without it, as their climate is as fickle as other skies in 
April, and they are liable at any time to be surprised by a 
shower. In the eastern parts, the old men wear small-clothes of 
leather, long dark cloth coats, with bright buttons ; shoes with 
buckles, and three-cornered hats. But the youth have one 
uniform dress throughout Thuringia — high boots, cloth small- 
clothes, green or blue jacket, and a light cloth cap. At their 
work, the men are often seen with a white or blue shirt over 
their jackets. The women, as elsewhere, retain more tena- 
ciously the peculiarities of the olden time, and the cap is the 
article they put off, or change last. The foundation or crowu- 



FONDNESS OF SPORT. 367 

piece is often of silk and velvet, with genuine gold and silver 
ornaments, with ribbons in great bows and knots, and streamers 
falling down behind. Real Brussels lace, too, forms the 
border. Sometimes the whole is surmounted by a plume, with 
great knots of ribbon upon the top. On ordinary occasions, 
a turban is wreathed about the head, with the grace of an 
Indian princess, the ends falling at the side. ' The dress is 
the full, many-plaited skirt of cloth, bordered with a different 
color, and the bodice in front variegated. 

In the fields the women wear a curious little cap-shaped hat, 
with green ribbons and rosettes. Yery coquettishly is this 
donned by young girls. 

The burgher class retained a peculiar dress longer than 
almost anywhere else, and were always to be seen in church, 
with gold or silver caps, bordered with rich lace, and gold or 
white ribbons ; white neckerchief and white stockings ; black 
apron and black shoes ; a large silk cape, pointed before and 
behind, and trimmed with lace ; and over all a heavy blue 
cloth mantle. Brides of all classes must wear this mantle 
during the marriage ceremony, and one often descends through 
many generations. 

It is a favorite diversion of young ladies in cities, at wed- 
dings or parties, to procure the costume of past ages, and 
assuming, as far as possible, manners to correspond, appear as 
princess or duchess, or other titled lady, for an hour, to the 
infinite amusement of the company. They look so curious and 
outlandish that it seems impossible they could ever have been 
worn. Yet, some only half a century old are as unlike the 
modern mode as those of the year twelve hundred. There is 
no class of people in Germany whose religion prompts them 
*a frown upon sport, and the aged never lose their re 1 !^ for 



368 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

fun. We lived some weeks in a quiet house, with two old 
ladies, of whom one had been married and lost her husband in 
early youth, and the other was betrothed and lost her lover 
about the same time. They had a large house, and took board- 
ers for a week, or a month, or a year, and always endeavored to 
have a few young people, in order to keep themselves fresh and 
bright. They were intelligent, refined and dignified ladies, but 
the young men and young girls felt not the least restraint in 
their presence ; if there was an excursion, a sail on the river, a 
wedding or a dance, they were expected to go, and in every- 
thing that could make an hour pass gaily after the work was 
done, their hands were not less ready than the maiden of six- 
teen. To " help " they had always one or two, who were be- 
trothed, and wished to spend the six months previous to mar- 
riage in learning to cook. They were sometimes girls of noble 
families. All the forenoon they were in morning-gown, long 
apron, and little white cap, cooking and serving, as merry as 
larks, but diligent and attentive to their work. Their hands 
and arms were as large and red as those of any cook, though 
their faces were beautiful, and their manners entirely lady-like. 
As the tea, like the breakfast, is little more than a roll and 
butter, they had not much to do after dinner, as there were also 
a man and maid-servant for the drudgery. In the evening they 
were therefore free, and when a walk or party did not engage 
them, they were always planning something for sport at home, 
like dressing an image and placing it in some young man's 
room, knowing he would come home about dark, and entering, 
would think a lady sat by his window. Or, dressing themselves 
in antique fashion and getting up theatricals, all laughing and en- 
joying themselves, as a similar American family would not think 
it proper to do more than once a year. We do not see that it 



SOCIAL LIFE — CURIOSITY. 369 

derogates at all from the respect the young pay to the old, but on 
the contrary, preserves it. The " old ladies " are never consid- 
ered in the way, never the least damp upon their youthful exuber- 
ance. " When they work hard they must play," the old lady said, 
11 and as long as they keep within the bounds of what is right 
we do not wish to restrain them." In other respects their cha- 
racteristics are very similar to those of New England women. 
Living within a very narrow sphere — neither by enlarged read- 
ing nor traveling, seeing much of the world, they become nar- 
row-minded, suspicious and censorious. Everybody must fol- 
low exactly their rudder in all things in order to be right, and 
observing only from their own chimney corner, their judgments 
are very apt to be clouded by the smoke and dust around them. 
Our young companion, who had just come from England, was 
often in a fret, because she said they were so neugierig, so curi- 
ous and inquisitive, and we have since been annoyed by the 
same, and heard it quite as thoroughly ridiculed and con- 
demned among themselves. What a string of questions they 
will ask concerning one's grandfather, great-grandfather and 
all the preceding grandfathers. Why we go here, and why 
we don't go there. What we are doing, and what we intend to 
do, with plenty of advice about what we should do. Yet all this 
we have heard from the same class of women at home, and 
have found women in Germany above such pettiness — liberal, 
enlightened, and polite. Frederika Bremer thought it was 
very green for Americans to ask her continually " how she liked 
America ;" but in this very old world, we have scarcely met a 
person who did not ask us the same question with regard to 
Germany, and quite as sensitive they are about the reply — 
quite sure they are in all things perfect, and an author who 
does not say so may hope for as little favor in their eyes. 

16* 



370 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

But it is our experience in all lands, that dreadfully good 
people are not always the best. Those who make the greatest 
parade of their piety, wisdom, or virtue, are not always sure to 
exhibit true godliness, in its simplicity and truth, in their lives. 
Those who think the highest and almost the only Christian 
duty is, to exercise watchfulness over others, might, with good 
grace and much profit, turn their eyes within, and analyze the 
motives which^prompt their charitable criticisms and reproaches. 
There are multitudes of people in America who think it 
wicked to dance, and indulge in various diversions, to whom 
it has never occurred that it is wicked to fret, or mope, 
or be guilty of all uncharitableness. A little amusement 
would divert their minds and so lighten their hearts that 
they would be infinitely better fitted for devotion, be much 
happier themselves, and make those around them far less 
miserable. 

We have found in Germany, as elsewhere, that women 
thrown upon their own resources, and obliged to calculate for 
themselves, calculate much more closely than men, are more 
exacting and less generous. No position more surely develops 
all that is disagreeable in a woman's nature, and makes her 
what the world calls masculine, than one which obliges her to 
fill, in a household, the station of both man and woman. For 
this she deserves our pity, not our censure. Many in this posi- 
tion profess an infinite contempt for a lady who is obliged to 
write for a living, because it brings her into the public arena 
usually occupied by men. But a woman engaged in literary 
pursuits will not become so masculine in a lifetime, as one who 
occupies a man's position in a household will become in a single 
year. The peculiar characteristics of the latter, however, mov- 
ing in her small circle, will scarcely be known outside of it, 



SOCIAL LIFE. 371 

except to those who deal with her in transactions that the 
world considers in all respects womanly; and so, if she be dis- 
honest, mean and exacting, her faults will be ascribed to her 
nature, and not to her position ; while they may, in truth, be 
owing to both. 



CHAPTER XXY 

MINERS AND LACE WEAVERS OF SAXONY — FARMERS OF SCHLESWIG 
HOLSTEIN, OF WESTPHALIA, AND OLDENBURG, AND OF NORTH- 
ERN PRUSSIA SUPERSTITIONS AMBER FISHERIES — COSTUMES 

DUTCH SETTLERS ON THE VISTULA ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY AT 

BERLIN PFINGSTEN . 

We have once or twice alluded to the wretched condition of 
the poor lace weavers and mine diggers of Saxony. Not with- 
in the limits of Germany proper are there any other dwellings 
so miserable, any other people so destitute of all the comforts 
of life. Among the Erz mountains, travelers go to view the 
wildest, most grand, and picturesque scenery, and in their re- 
gion are some of the most frequented mineral baths. Erz is the 
German for ore or mines, and in the heart of these mountains 
lies one of the greatest sources of Prussia's wealth. The habi- 
tations of those who descend into the earth to bring it forth, 
are of mud, lined with moss or turf, and covered with boards. 
Something like isinglass is used for windows, but they are all 
patched with paper or stuffed with moss. If they have pre- 
served a bedstead through many generations, there will be one 
still in the cottage, but otherwise we shall find only straw with- 
out covering, upon which they throw themselves with scarcely 
more ceremony than pigs. A wooden chest and a few stools 
complete the furniture. Yet this is more thickly populated than 
any other district. Three or four families live under one such 
roof, the dividing lines being chalk, instead of a stick of wood, 
as with the Laplander. Here dwell the weavers of linen, those 

ST2 



MISTERS AND LACE WEAVERS. 373 

who make lace, and here are also made great quantities of 
wooden ware. There is no end to their industry, no relief to 
their labor. Like those we have seen in the vine districts, 
they carry earth and manure for miles to cover the naked 
rocks, in order to make them fruitful, often to see the whole 
result of their labor swept away by the first tempest. Oats, 
flax, and potatoes are all they try to raise, and these must be 
harvested where the chamois scarcely veutures to climb. In 
the winter they are almost buried in snow, which falls in such 
masses that during a single night every window and door is 
stopped, and they must make a hole through the roof to go 
forth. Drifts are heaped in every direction, twenty to thirty 
feet deep, through which they do not attempt to make a path, 
but like the Indian and the Laplander, glide over the tops upon 
snow-shoes. Among these mountaineers sledging is a favorite 
amusement, and sliding down hill, not only what the children 
like, but what they are obliged to do, if they will go at all 1 

Like all who dwell among mountains, too, they love their 
rocks and dells, and whilst always wandering in other lands, 
are forever longing to return. With their packs they are seen 
in every clime — men, women, and children — and from oldest to 
youngest are busy in some species of handiwork. Little boys 
make lace and embroider muslin, till their hands become too 
hard and stiff, and they cannot afford even a woman or child 
to rock the cradle. The Indian mother and the Laplander 
consign their little ones to the winds to lull them, but here the 
waters perform this motherly office. By a simple machinery, 
little wheels or paddles connect with the cradle, which are 
turned by the dashing stream, and as well by the music as the 
motion the little ones are hushed to slumber. Where a water- 
fall is foaming upon every cliff and in every crevice, it is not 



374 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

difficult to get all the cradles rocked, even in this strange fash- 
ion, and even when children are more plenty than chickens 
and pigs ; but it is a funny sight to see a cataract rocking and 
singing a baby to sleep. 

Scarcely a mouthful of anything but potatoes passes their 
lips during all the year, and this without butter, or any condi- 
ment but salt. The women, therefore, spend very little time in 
cooking. The shuttle and the bobbin keep their hands in un- 
ceasing motion, while the hammer and the pickaxe keep time 
in the depths below. Yet the festal days do not pass unheed- 
ed. For Christmas they manage to get a sausage and a salad, 
an oil lamp, and a few knicknacks, and the echoes tell of happy 
hearts, if it is true that only those who are glad can sing. 
The long winter evenings are spent by the young men in woo- 
ing, and the old men in telling of the days that are past, and 
so wanes the lamp of life ; and who shall say there is really 
less happiness in the hut than in the palace ? 

Yet a pleasing contrast to these are the great farmhouses at 
the north, and in spite of our philosophy, we cannot help asso- 
ciating happiness with physical comfort. 

As we have elsewhere said, upon what are called the marshes 
of Schleswig Holstein, there is neither prince nor noble, 
though one of their historians has said that the earth — composed 
of noble dust — is made of the corpses of those that have been 
slain in the struggles for freedom. Now they are a peasant 
aristocracy, but with no gradations of rank among themselves. 
The labor which they hire is performed by the poor Jutlander, 
who comes in summer and returns to his hut in winter. They 
are farmers, and though they work hard, it is upon their own 
free soil. The youngest son is the heir to the parental estate, 
and the others must be provided for through marriage, like the 



FAKMEKS OF NORTH GERMANY. 375 

sons of nobles. The house is usually but one story, very long, 
with red tiled roof, and imbedded in shrubbery and flowers. 
Tall trees and forests are not natives of the soil, but wide ex- 
tending plains of wheat, rye, oats, and barley, and in some dis- 
tricts hundreds of acres devoted to herds, from which are 
driven forty or fifty thousand in one autumn to Hamburg 
market, and sent from there over the whole earth, in the form 
of smoked and salt beef ! 

The gala dress of the people is the richest and costliest, and 
in their great comfortable rooms are found the luxurious furni- 
ture of the cities. On the eastern side of the peninsula, which 
includes the little spot called Angeln, there is the true English 
culture, the farmers being surrounded by the blooming hedges, 
and producing the best butter and cheese in all Deutschland. 
Here the eldest instead of the youngest sons inherit the original 
estate, which must be preserved whole through all generations ; 
but if parcels have been since purchased and added, these may be 
shared among other members of the family. Here the stables 
and outhouses are separate from the dwelling, and the milk- 
room is often a great cellar by itself, with enough room above 
ground to admit of windows and air-holes, that there may be 
free circulation. Here, upon shelves, in great flat, wooden 
pans, each with a red stripe around the top, the milk is set for 
the cream to rise, and from which the thick yellow mass is 
daily removed and churned, a horse being made to turn the 
dash. 

In Westphalia and Oldenburg, the stately oaks and elms, 
the long avenues of lindens, with the thick groves of beech 
and birch, give the Hof a more princely appearance, as we 
have elsewhere described. Here the magpies chatter among 
the trees, and the kingly stork builds its nest upon the r oof 



376 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

Hew solemnly he flaps his great wings as he descends from his 
high estate to seek his food upon the earth. What does he 
eat ? Frogs ; and how stately his steps and keen his glance, 
as he wends his way to the marshy pond, to seize his prey. 
The graceful swan is sailing on the surface, and ducks and 
ducklings of every hue are paddling their way to shore. 

In the great family room the fire is never permitted to go 
out, except when the head of the household dies, and then it 
must be kindled by the new heir. " Take a place by my fire," 
is the phrase of hospitality to all who come, as one very 
similar was with the Indian. In some places the bridegroom 
must take the bride in his arms and carry her three times 
round the great kettle-hook, as in this way will be inspired a 
love for her new home. 

Among some of the peasants of the northern part of Prussia, 
are burial customs resembling those among the Indians. As 
soon as a person dies, the window is opened that the spirit 
may have free egress, and yet a piece of money is placed in the 
mouth to supply its wants, either by the way or in the other 
world. In the coffin the Indian puts a bow and arrow, and 
some maize, and the German peasant, a bowl and spoon, the 
comb which belonged to the deceased, and the hair last combed 
from his head. Among others, they sing half the night before 
the burial takes place, and from seven in the morning till two 
in the afternoon, then eat pea-mush and drink brandy, after 
which they accompany the corpse to the grave, singing by the 
way, and believing the more they sing the happier the spirit 
will be in heaven. In this case each relative deposits some- 
thing in the coffin, a piece of his coat, or shirt, or necker- 
chief, and a lock of hair, with a flask of brandy. 

When a child is born, it must not be wrapped in any per* 



SUPERSTITIONS. 377 

sonal apparel, lest its morals, be injured. Before it is washed, 
if a boy, it must be set upon a horse, which is brought into 
the room on purpose, and if a girl, the little hand must be 
made to clasp a churn-dash, the propensities of each being 
influenced for life thereby. Whilst it is being washed, a piece 
of money is repeatedly whirled about in the tub, which will 
insure to it future wealth. One would think they would speedily 
be cured of this superstition in their miserable poverty. The 
first swaddling-band must be the bridal ribbon of the mother, 
and the first dress must be of something old, else the child 
will wear out its clothes fast all its life. That it may not be 
carried off by pigmies before it is baptized, a leaf from the 
Bible is laid under its pillow. When the mother carries it to 
be christened, she reads by the way in the Bible, and prays 
whilst watching it, then it will early learn to read, and to 
further the same object, the father places some written or 
printed sentences among its clothes. A boy and a girl cannot 
be baptized with the same Water, as the girl will thereby have 
a beard, and the boy be morally injured. When they return 
from church, the father takes it in his arms and runs with all 
possible speed over the threshold, as this will make it nimble. 

To enumerate the superstitions of Germany, would be to 
write volumes. There are blue spirits and grey, black spirits 
and white, naiads in the woods, and mermaids in the streams ; 
pigmies in the earth, invisible messengers in the air, and fairies 
under every green leaf. 

It is within our remembrance, in New England, to have seen 
cows bewitched, and we have seen them bewitched in the same 
way here, and the same charm used to restore them to health. 
Children are frightened by white ladies in the churchyard and 
black ladies in the forest, and no event of life is so trifling that 



378 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

it is not influenced by supernatural interposition. The beauti- 
ful story of the Amber Witch would have no improbability 
among these people, and, indeed might be true of itself. Had 
we not read that simple story, we might not have thought of 
the Bernstein, or amber fisheries, on the coast of the North and 
East Sea, where men, women, and children stand amid the 
foaming waves till their clothes are frozen to their bodies to 
catch every particle of the bright shining mineral which the 
tide or storm floats to the shore, though learned men think 
they have discovered it to be, not a mineral, but the heart of a 
tree which belonged to the antediluvian world, or a time 
almost as ancient. Thousands of pounds are caught in a year, 
of which the most beautiful specimens may be seen in the 
museums of Berlin. As the reward of their labor depends 
entirely upon chance, if one is more lucky than the rest, he will, 
very likely, be accused of being a favorite of the witches, as 
was the poor little girl who, against her will, found her apron 
filled, she scarcely knew how, every time she went upon the 
beach. It is a more perilous and laborious life than .the fishing 
for fishes, and in these latter days is not so well rewarded. But 
not more attached are the Swiss to their mountains than the 
fishermen to their bleak coast and the music of the winds and 
waves upon the far-off sea. The villages where they live, and 
their cots, have a pretty and neat appearance, that is not found 
among those of similar means further inland. The streets are 
not paved, and the houses have but one story, but the roof is 
of tile, and chimneys convey the smoke away, which is not the 
case only a little farther south among the peasantry. The 
walls are of brick, sometimes painted, and sometimes having 
only the balcony ornamented with stripes, to correspond with 
eimilar ornaments upon the doors and windows. The panes of 



DWELLINGS AND COSTUMES. 379 

glass are large, and either clear or stained in bright colors 
and the frame of iron work, clean and glistening like that upon 
a ship of war. A pretty fence surrounds the house, inclosing 
also a flower-bed, a vegetable garden, and a few fruit trees. 
All is so prim and neat, one cannot help thinking they are 
now and then washed by the waves ; and within, it is certain, 
busy hands have scrubbed and scoured. The floor is white, 
and in the walls are the berths, like a ship's cabin, and all tho 
fashioning of the ceiling and carved work is after the same 
model, and with great taste and elegance, being wrought in 
winter during the leisure hours of the sea-faring man. The 
mantel ornaments, instead of being porcelain, are shells, curious 
bones, and dried fishes, as the instruments with which they 
gather them are the line and net, instead of the spade and 
plough. Their trade is also with fish. With it they buy their 
bread, their butter, and clothes. The women take care of the 
garden, and sometimes cultivate a bit of land. But the fisher- 
man lives upon the sea. 

Their dress is only peculiar in form, the color is brown and 
grey — a broad jacket with buttons of cocoa-nut shell, or black 
horn ; home-made drilling or ticking small-clothes, two pairs 
over one another, and over these, white linen fishing pantaloons, 
reaching halfway to the ankle, so wide that they look like an 
apron ; black stockings, and shoes bound with leather, and i 
round hat with broad brim. 

The women wear first, a white linen cap, and over this a 
black cone-shaped cap, stuffed with wool, and coming low upon 
the forehead, which, upon the married women, is trimmed with 
ribbons, and left plain upon those of young girls. Over this is 
yet a straw hat. The chemise has no sleeves, but over it is 
worn a jacket of finer linen with long sleeves. The bodice is 



380 TEAS ANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

of home-made cloth, embroidered and ornamented with gold or 
silver threads. 

This is also the dress of the peasants of Pomerania, Riigen, 
and other adjacent islands, and the customs of all are nearly 
the same. Over every door is a sign called the Wakrzeichen — 
true sign — which indicates the condition and occupation of the 
owner — a fish or an anchor, a spade or a cross, triangle or 
ring, each knowing the sign of the other as well as if it were a 
written name. 

Here if a maiden or widow has property in her own right, 
she has the privilege of choosing a husband, and making the 
first proposition, which, being conventional, by law and custom, 
is of course proper. Both the parents of the bride and bride- 
groom contribute to the expenses of the wedding, and the 
bridal train proceeds to church in the manner we saw in the 
Black Forest, forming two lines, till they reach the church door, 
where they unite and greet the bride. After the ceremony the 
men return to the wedding-house, but the bride, bridesmaids, 
and women go to another, where they are greeted by a speech 
from one of the women, over a mug of warm beer. Towards 
evening a pistol is fired before the door, when one of the offi- 
cials of the day enters, bringing a can of beer, which is 
passed around in the midst of another speech, when they all 
return together to the house of the bride, where the dinner 
awaits them, during which the bridegroom sits at a table among 
the women, and the bride at another among the men. 

In some places the door of the house is fastened when the 
bridal train returns from church, and must not for a long time 
be opened. After a while some one comes with a loaf of bread 
and a jug of beer, from which the bride, then the bridegroom 
and each guest must drink, before entering, and bite also a bit 



BRIDAL CUSTOMS. 381 

from the loaf of bread, which is not eaten at the time, but 
preserved as a charm. In other places the bride must stand 
upon the hearth before the fire and taste of everything in pot 
and kettle before it is served. The token of betrothal is a 
hymn-book instead of a ring, which is carried about on all pos- 
sible occasions, and certainly is not so convenient a testimony 
to her honor as something that may be worn upon the finger. 
Among another tribe or clan, after the marriage ceremony, 
the young men give the bridegroom a few strokes with a whip, 
that he may know how good it is, and spare his wife a similar 
pain ; then he brings her beer and bread, as a sign that he will 
henceforth provide for her. She must not visit her parents 
after the wedding, till she has been to church on the following 
Sunday, else she will not prosper in her married life. 

Among all the German and Dutch colonies in other parts of 
Europe, they preserve their own peculiar customs and way of 
life, instead of adopting new as they do in America, and incor- 
porating themselves with the people. Those who went from 
Holland were in many cases burghers and knights, and as their 
means permit, they keep up a kind of ceremonious stateliness, 
after the manner of their ancestors, and in accordance with the 
feding of the Dutch burghers of New York. With them a 
wooing is still after this fashion. When a young man and young 
woman have ascertained in that silent way " more eloquent than 
language," that they have the special preference for each other 
necessary to the holy state of matrimony, the young man makes 
the first formal demonstration by mounting a steed duly saddled 
and bridled by the coachman, and himself duly equipped by a 
valet, to ride to the house of the bride.* He must also go on 

* In Germany, this appellation is given before marriage, instead of afterwards, a* 
}p Iceland and America. 



382 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

Tuesday or Thursday, as these are the lucky days. When he ar- 
rives no one meets him at the door. He must tie his own horse, 
and enter alone, experiencing the most distant and formal recep- 
tion, which he does not seem to consider a bad sign. When 
he leaves no one accompanies him to the door. Eight days 
latter he goes again in the same manner, also on Tuesday or 
Thursday. But this time he is greeted at the door, his horse 
is taken to the stable and fed, and he remains till evening, en- 
tertained with the best the house affords. This is taken that 
he is considered one of the family. A few days later the be- 
trothal takes place, which is a ceremony almost as grand as 
the weddings among the peasantry, the bridegroom being trans- 
ported to the house of the bride, in a carriage with four horses, 
with new harness, and polished in the finest manner, a new 
suit of clothes, and servants in livery. In this manner they 
pay the betrothal visits, in Germany, among the higher 
classes. When persons are betrothed and are ready to have 
it known among their friends, they take a carriage and 
pay visits, often in these days only leaving a card, with their 
names in betrothal proximity engraved thereon, and in little 
different form from a wedding card. 

The bans are published the first Sunday after the betrothal, 
and three weeks later, on Tuesday or Thursday, is the wedding, 
in the greatest possible state. On one occasion it is said the 
cake was brought from Dantzic in a wagon which not less than 
four horses could draw, and six hundred flasks of wine were 
drunk ! 

These settlers live upon t^e banks of the Vistula, where, like 
their ancestors in Holland, they converted a marsh into the 
most productive meadow, elevating the land where it was neces- 
sary, building dikes, and opening drains, till they made for 



DUTCH ON THE VISTULA. 383 

themselves • the most beautiful, as well as the most fruitful 
valley in all the country. The houses are wood, with thatched 
roofs, and balconies supported by pillars, with large gardens 
inclosed by fences. The barn, stable, and family rooms, ore 
under the same roof, and near by, the baking room, granary 
and room for the carriages, harness, and other apparatus per- 
taining thereto. The floors of the house are polished with 
wax ; mahogany furniture, and often a piano, are reflected in 
the tall mirrors upon the walls. The doors are of carved oak, 
and upon the dressers gleam silver coffee-pots, gold and silver 
goblets. In the kitchen the tin and copper are in the greatest 
abundance, and polished to brilliancy. 

The cows a,re washed every day, and their tails done up in 
papers, or what amounts to the same, coiled up and bound to 
little polished rollers, which is indeed a funny sight. But they 
look so clean one would be quite willing to invite them to dine, 
or share with them a lodge. The floor is strewn with coal 
instead of straw, and so supplied with grooves, and little rills of 
running water, that the delicacy of the most fastidious is not 
so troubled as in some of the palaces occupied by human 
beings. 

Everywhere the harvest feast is celebrated by leaving a little 
bunch of wheat or oats standing upon the field, around which 
they dance, the maidens being crowned with wreaths, till one 
of the reapers cuts the last stem, when the whole is carried to 
other sheaves, and the feast closed in the house, with- dance, and 
song, and wine. 

In Hamburg, the children from the orphan asylum make a 
happy gala-day, by being crowned with wreaths, and marching 
through the city, stopping at each house to demand alms, col- 
lecting much more than they would if they went in rags, or 



384 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

man if the same were demanded by old ladies or policemen. 
In several kingdoms and duchies, the annual almanac is 
published by the government, and the proceeds of the sale 
devoted to the support of the orphans, no private person being 
allowed to prepare an almanac. 

To enumerate and describe all the festivals, as we have said, 
would be impossible, and there is a sameness about them that 
makes it unnecessary. The scene which the Prater near Vienna 
exhibits at Easter, may be seen in the neighborhood of almost 
every large city, on some day during the year. In Berlin, it is 
on St. Bartholomew's day (Aug. 24), when the whole city pours 
forth, prince and peasant, old and young, rich and poor, merely 
because it is an old festal day, and they will rejoice. The 
celebration has no connection however with the events which 
took place in France on that day. It seems to be by accident 
that the Stralauer Fischzug occurs exactly at this time, and 
it was a long time before the people knew themselves in 
what it originated, but at length learned that the fishermen of 
the place were accustomed on that day to devote the proceeds 
of their labors to the pastors of the villages, and a priuce one 
morning amused himself with their labors. Ever after it became 
a festal day. Many have an origin as simple. Until 1848 the 
carnival was celebrated at Cologne with scarcely less pomp and 
pleasure than in Rome. For a time during the political trou- 
bles, it was prohibited, and ha,s never since attained to its for- 
mer magnificence. 

At Frankfort-on-the-Main, Pfingsten, is the one universal 
holiday, and at Munich, the great October feast, instituted in 
honor of the marriage of one of their princes. On this occasion 
the people come from every part of the kingdom, and there is 
the appearance of a great fair. Stalls are filled with fine cat- 



PFING8TEN. 385 

tie, all the products of agriculture, fruits, flowers — what they 
have spuu, and what they have woven, being brought for exhi- 
bition and sale ; and racing, betting, shooting and wrestling 
are to be seen everywhere. In every city, town and village, are 
singing and musical societies, which have been gradually estab- 
lished in the last three centuries, and these are continually 
holding anniversaries, and still more general are the shooting 
companies. 

In America the whole country would be one scene of drunk- 
enness and revel with so many occasions for excitement, drinking 
and dancing ; but either because they are so accustomed to 
them, that they do not get excited, or because they are not 
so excitable, or from some cause we cannot divine, the people 
drink, and sing, and dance, the year in and the year out, 
without so much noise and hurrah as is to be seen on one 
Fourth of July. 



IT 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

EDUCATION IN GERMANY— INVENTION ARTISTS THE GERMAN ELE- 
MENT IN THE UNITED STATES EMIGRATION PICTURE OF A 

GERMAN FAMILY PREPARING TO GO TO AMERICA. 

In a voluminous work upon Germany, published the last 
year at Gotha, the author congratulates himself and his 
countrymen that no other country in the world is so advanced 
in every species of culture — no land where all classes, from the 
highest to the lowest, are so well educated — no land where 
so much pains is taken to elevate the people ! On an average, 
there is only one in every hundred who cannot read and write, in 
some states only one in ten hundred, and in some none. In the 
whole country there are four hundred gymnasiums, and twenty- 
four universities, and in the universities eighteen thousand stu- 
dents. In Prussia alone, are three hundred and eighty-two insti- 
tutions for orphan and neglected children ; all of whom are 
taught to read, and write, and cipher. In 150 cities are public 
libraries, and in no other land has the book-trade attained to so 
much importance ! there being 2,650 establishments ; of which 
Leipsic has 150, Berlin 180, and the whole of Austria 190 ; 
and the number of works from German authors, which appear 
annually, is from 8,000 to 10,000. Auother author says 
these are nearly all works of imagination, as it is the imagina- 
tion of Germany, which is the most fruitful, and works of this 
kind in which the people most revel. A great proportion are 

386 



EDUCATION — INVENTION ARTISTS. 387 

children's books, and this species of literature is superior to that 
of any other country. Yet, among the masses of the people, it is 
impossible to buy books, and as far as reading is concerned, 
they might almost as well have never been taught. There is 
only one in a hundred who cannot read, yet not one in a 
hundred ever thinks of reading, or has an opportunity. The 
author had not been in every land, and had no idea of a truly 
intelligent, reading people. The newspaper is a far more effi- 
cient educator than the spelling-book, and of this they know 
nothing. 

He says, also, in no land have been so many inventions aud 
discoveries, and no one will think of denying to them, great 
thinkers, great philosophers and inventors. To the capabilities 
of the people, we deny nothing. What a glorious people they 
would soon be, could they once get rid of the yoke. But this 
one thing it seems impossible for them to do. 

Guttenburg, Herschel, and Kepler, all the world knows, were 
Germans ; but it is not so well known that a. Holstein school- 
master discovered vaccination, and that among the Hartz 
Mountains, a kind of railroad was first used. Wooden bellows 
first blew the flames in Thuringia, and the spinning-wheel was 
first turned in Brunswick. Porcelain was first made by a Ger- 
man, the clarionet invented, and the coloring of the beautiful 
Prussian blue. The first correct theory concerning the rainbow 
was by a German ; the motion of the comets, and the discovery 
of the spots upon the sun. The air-pump and the barometer owe 
their origin to the same class of earnest thinkers. Here was 
drawn the first map of the moon, and finished the first tele- 
scope; the burning-glass and microscope; the ear-trumpet and 
the organ ; wood and copper engraving ; lithography and 
stenography ; the tangent, in trigonometry, and the hanging 



388 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

compass ; besides many which are too well known to need 
enumerating. 

The drying and compressing of vegetables was a German 
discovery, and is a great business, not less useful to others than 
profitable to them. They are so prepared as to occupy the 
least possible space, and keep any length of time, making it 
possible for ships to have good vegetables in any climate, and 
upon the longest voyage, and all people to have comfortable 
food during all the year. In two or three instances, these 
discoveries were made by what are called noblemen j but most 
of them by men in humble life, as is true of many of their first 
artists and musicians. It is related of Mozart, that he offered 
himself to a lady of rank, and she scornfully replied : " You 
aspire so high." He answered : " You shall one day look up 
to me." Which she lived to do. Dannecker was the son of 
the Duke of Wurtemburg's groom, and his first labor, cleaning 
stables. Next door to them lived a stone-cutter, who was 
continually troubled by finding his blocks of marble all scrib- 
bled over with designs and pictures. When the Karl's school 
was founded in Stuttgard, the poor stable-boy went to the 
Duke and asked permission to go. After inquiry concerning 
him, he received permission, with the assurance of aid and 
protection if he proved worthy. His progress was, every day, 
a marvel to his teachers, and at fifteen he bore away the honors 
of the school. While there he became acquainted with 
Schiller, whose head he afterwards chiseled, to the immortal 
honor of himself and friend. The Ariadne upon the tiger, 
from Homer, seems to us the mo.st graceful and beautiful of 
anything we ever saw in marble. Hans Sachs, the poet, was a 
shoemaker. Rauch, the sculptor, who has recently died at 
Berlin, was originally a brick-mason, and afterwards valet to a 



EMIGRATION TO AMERICA. 389 

count. When he became a greater man than the court noble, 
he was one day invited by him to ride. During the drive he 
remarked : "I rode with you once before ; but perhaps you 
do not remember it ?" " No, indeed, said the count ; when 
could it be ?" "When I was a boy; but then I rode behind 
the carriage instead of at your side." He is said to have 
resembled Washington, in personal appearance, so much that 
he might easily have been taken for him. 

We might fill a volume with such anecdotes, but we have 
already passed the line within which we limited ourselves, and 
must find a place to stop, for in these days of speed, people 
tolerate long books scarcely better than stupid ones ; or if one is 
long, are sure to think it stupid. 

Having for a year and a half very diligently studied the Ger- 
man people, we are ready to say "good speed to every ship- 
load that sails across the water." They will not be all 
worthy people, as so many from any country cannot, but the 
greatest proportion will become so, and even those that gov- 
ernment and friends pay for going, to get them out of the 
way, have some inducement to reform, and are quite as likely to 
become good as to remain bad. 

It is infinitely amusing to see the importance given to them 
at home the moment they get " on the other side" (this is the 
phrase most common among the peasantry in speaking of 
America). " The German element," says the author above 
quoted, " takes rank next to the original Yankee, and in 
some states exceeds it. It was even to the German Bauer 
democracy that America owed her independence ! They were 
the first to shoulder the gun — they were tbe bravest and most 
enduring of Washington's soldiers !" How strange, how 
true, and yet how lamentable that those who do so mucb 



390 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

for other countries can do nothing for their own. Here the 
Bauer caste are spoken of exactly as northern people are in the 
habit of speaking of negroes ; but when they get to America 
they are the greatest credit to their own land, and the bone, 
sinew, and glory of ours. 

The Hessians whom the English king bought of their prince, 
and who were obliged to go against their will, gave, at that 
time, to the whole fatherland a bad name, but even they tried 
to redeem it afterwards by deserting in troops to the Ameri- 
can side, or offering themselves as servants among the German 
settlers. The whole number who emigrated between 1815 and 
1854, was 1,800,000 ! In Frankfort-on-the-Maine, in 1682, 
was founded the first company for sending colonists to America, 
the " Auswanderer Gesellschaft, called the " Frankfort Land 
Company." Those who first went under its auspices settled 
Germautown, in Pennsylvania. 

During a famine in Germany, in 1*109, Queen Anne gave free 
passage to all who would go, and thirty-five thousand availed 
themselves of the opportunity, and from this time, driven by 
war, oppression and famine, there has been a continuous stream. 
A few now and then return, says our author, but it is with the 
loss of their national feeling. The fatherland is uot to them 
what it was. No, and we advise the kings and princes to see 
to these few who return to live, and also to those who only 
come back for a few weeks or months. For though they can- 
not speak loud, for fear of imprisonment or death, their whis- 
pers are mighty instruments of evil to palaces and thrones. 
They speak to some purpose, because they have seen the prac- 
tical working of things. They deal not in dreams and hypo- 
theses like the philosophers and students who have only specu- 
lated upon freedom in their closets. Every father, mother, 



• 



GOING TO AMERICA. 391 

brother and sister, believes what is related to them at the fire- 
side by him who has been long absent, who has prospered him- 
self, and sent them money to make them comfortable, and now 
comes with stories marvelous as fairy tales, of the strange 
land in which he has been. We have often thought, too, as 
we have read the letters of those Ausicanderers, that they were 
like so many trains of powder, running in every direction 
through the land. Far more dangerous are they than any- 
thing a poor colporteur may have in his pack, and there is no 
nook or corner of Germany now into which they do not go. 

The picture of a family breaking up and going to America, 
will perhaps not be an unpleasant one with which to take leave 
of our readers. We have seen many, though all were not ex- 
actly like the one we give. Many, when they have sold all 
they* have, possess scarcely enough to get there ; and in these 
days the great family wagon only takes the little party to the 
nearest railroad, instead of all the way to the sea coast, and 
they must dine in a much less poetic and picturesque manner 
than when they tied their horses in the shade of a clump of 
oaks, made a fire, and boiled the soup, while the children 
danced on the green. But now, as then, they manage to spend 
very little for food by the way, and often even find themselves 
upon the ship. Of luxury and ceremony they know nothing. 
Those who only see them whilst emigrants think them misera- 
ble, filthy, and degraded, when perhaps they were almost beau- 
tiful in some snug little cot. and will be again, when they build 
another on the prairie. 

We translate the following from one of their own popular 
authors : * 

" It was on a beautiful spring morning in the month of May 

* Franz Hoffman. 



392 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

that Father Emanuel Wackerman, sunk in deep meditation, 
walked up and down beneath the shadow of his own vine and 
fig tree, in the little garden behind the cottage. The head, 
white with the silvery locks, fell low upon the breast, the 
hands were crossed behind, and the deep blue eye, which, in 
spite of age, had lost none of its brilliancy, rested upon the 
earth. 

" On the table, which stood in the little arbor, lay a paper, 
with a great seal, and near it the morning journal. 

" A long while stood the old man by the table, looking first 
at the letter and then at the paper, and then continued his 
walk. 

" It was such a morning as one sees only now and then, evqji 
in the beautiful spring. The trees were in their richest green ; 
a thousand flowers bloomed upon the cleanly weeded garden 
beds, and opened their chalices to the morning sun. The birds 
hopped in the branches overhead, and filled the air with their 
melody, and the painted butterfly sipped the honey from the 
dew-laden rose, resting a moment upon one, and then winging 
her way to another far distant on the bright parterre. All re- 
joiced in this golden light and balmy air except Father Eman- 
uel, who had no eye for what was life and glory to every other 
living thing. 

" What had so oppressed his usually glad and joyous spirit ? 
It was his custom to leave the house early to walk in the gar- 
den, but it was to refresh himself with the beauty and rejoice 
with the glad children of spring, and lift his heart in gratitude 
to the Giver of all this good. Now he seemed not to hear a 
bird or see a flower, and the motion of his lips betrayed a bur- 
den instead of a happy spirit, while he still acknowledged his 
many blessings. 



GOING TO AMERICA. 393 

" And these blessings were indeed many. Father Emanuel 
had house and farm, garden and meadow, field and fern. He 
was the richest man in the village. Two fine horses stood in 
his stable, a flock of sheep of finest wool grazed in his pasture, 
and in his coffer was ever a mite to bestow upon the poor who 
kuocked at his door. 

"But these were not his best riches. These were his family 
— his brave son William, Anna, his true and loving wife, and 
their children, Ernest and Frederic, two beautiful boys, and 
the little Maria, who was within a few days of her tenth birth- 
day. Upon these hung his soul, to them his heart clung as 
the richest of all earthly treasures. The grandmother, the 
wife of his youth, had gone to the Father in Heaven, but in 
undisturbed love and peace lived he with the family who were 
pious, industrious, and honored. 

" When the sun had risen a little higher in the heavens, the 
garden door opened and presented to him the happy faces of 
Ernest, Frederic, and Maria, come to say the accustomed 
1 good morning ' to grandfather. Usually, this arrival was 
very welcome to Father Emanuel, and filled him with joy, but 
to-day he greeted them with a sad smile, that cast a shadow 
over their fresh open countenances. He pressed a kiss upon 
their rosy lips, said a few friendly words, and then, instead of 
showing them the flowers, and talking with them, silently 
stepped aside to be alone. The eldest ran after him and said> 
1 What is the matter, grandfather ? you do not speak to us ; 
have we displeased you ? ' 

" ' No, oh no, my children/ said the grandfather, while he 
tenderly patted the cheek of the beautiful boy ; ' you are brave 
and good, and I am quite satisfied with you, but I have some- 
thing to say to your father ; go and call him, and be quiet 

n* 



394 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

away whilst we speak. Run, dear children, and my blessing 
and love be with you.' 

" The children, quieted by these words, ran to the house, but 
when they had goae the grandfather murmured : ' Poor, dear 
children, how will they bear being transplanted to a strange 
soil ; and yet what can happen to save us from this fate ? Is 
it not better to forsake all earthly goods than to sacrifice the 
health of the soul V 

" Again sorrowfully shook the grey head, and the old man 
walked with quicker step up and down, till his son appeared. 

" A fine stately man was William. Energy and manliness sat 
enthroned upon his brow, over which fell the hair in light brown 
locks. 'His form betokened remarkable strength, and his well- 
burnt hands showed that he used this strength well. For a few 
minutes he remained quiet, before the father observed him ; 
then he said : • Here I am, father : you wish to speak with 
me, but perhaps I have come too soon.' 

" ' No,' said the old man, ' I must indeed speak with you, 
and it cannot longer be put off. See, upon the table lies a 
paper, read it and tell me what you think.' 

" William seated himself upon a garden chair and began to 
read. From time to time his brow grew darker, and his lips 
compressed, and when he lifted his eyes again to the paper he 
exclaimed : 

11 ' This is, indeed, most unrighteous and hard to bear. What 
shall we do, father V 

" ' Tell me first your opinion, my son. Speak openly, con- 
cealing no thought for fear of my judgment. In so important 
a matter we must think only of what is right.' 

"'True, father, this is also my opinion. The government 



GOING TO AMERICA. 395 

wishes that we chauge our faith or leave our country. Is not 
this the substance of this unhallowed message V 

" ' Yes, my son !' answered the grandfather, ' and which will 
you choose ? Consider well before you decide.' 

" ■ Father,' answered William, 'there is nothing to consider. 
The Bible says : " He who will not take up his cross and follow 
me is not worthy of me ;" and also, "I am the light of the 
world, he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will 
have the light of life." Father, I am ready to leave all as God 
has commanded.' 

" ' But do you not forget, my son, what you will have to leave ? 
Home, friends, house, farm, garden, field, and meadows, which 
you have made fruitful by hard work, and watered with the 
sweat of your brow,' 

" ' I forget it not,' answered William, with quiet earnestness, 
1 but I remember that the Saviour said : "He who forsakes 
father and mother in my name, will be rewarded a hundred-fold." 
If we leave our possessions here God will still remain to us.' 

" ' But your wife, your children,' said the grandfather, ' have 
you thought how hard it will be for them to separate from all 
they love and hold dear ?' 

" ' Not from all, father. God will remain, and you and I. 
I know my Anna, she will think with me and not wish me to 
do otherwise.' 

" ' Well, then, well, my noble son,' exclaimed the grand- 
father, and pressed him to his bosom, ' your faith is mine, and 
I doubt not t^fat in the struggle with right and duty, it is good 
to think not of earthly possessions. So, then, we will be stead- 
fast and strong in the faith God is over all, and especially 
will he be with us wheu we place our dependence upon him 
with love and hope.' 



PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

" ' And which way shall we go ?' said William. 

" ' Where else than to the land of freedom — to the United 
States of America — where all are free to worship God as their 
hearts wish. - Shrinkest thou from the long way over the 
sea ? Forget not, my son, what is written : " Not a hair of 
your head falls without my notice." God can protect us on 
sea as on land.' 

" ' And yet, father, you have not encouraged the emigrant in 
seeking a strange land/ 

" ' No, my son, when from selfishness and the thirst of gold, 
one turns his back upon his fatherland. But this is not what 
tempts us. If we stay here it must be with burdened con- 
sciences. If we go, God is with us to be our guide and shield.' 

" ' But perhaps we can find a refuge nearer ; it is, indeed, sad 
to go so far across the great deep.' 

" ' Yes, but what security have we more in one place than in 
another ? To-day we are driven from here, and next year from 
there. Why subject ourselves to such harassing circumstances ? 
What matter, here or across the sea ? — God is everywhere. We 
must sacrifice much in selling our land, and if we buy again in 
this country must give a great price. No ! to America — there 
are forests and fruitful fields within our means, and with indus- 
try we leave a goodly inheritance to our children and children's 
children. Their affections are not so deeply rooted here. They 
are young and a new world will soon be their home, and 
strangers their friends.' 

" ' Enough, father, enough. I will not think^f myself when 
my children are concerned. Guide us and we will follow. 
May God give to them all he has destined to me. To work, 
and strive, and suffer, to open to them a future, is for me 
enough. To me the labor, to them the reward. I will sow 



GOING TO AMERICA. 397 

that they may reap ; and my true wife will say the same. Her 
love for the children is not less than mine, and what is for their 
good will she be ready to do. No distance will be too far, and 
no path too rough and stony. Guide us and we will follow.' 

"'Yes, with full trust/ exclaimed the clear, glad voice of 
Anna, who had heard the last words, and came smiling near. 
1 Yes, father, to thy hand and God-fearing heart we fearlessly 
trust our destiny.' 

" ' Good and excellent woman,' said the grandfather, ' but 
you shall not follow me blindly. I rejoice in thy love and 
trust, and hearty good will ; but you must hear all and judge 
for yourself.' Here he related to her all which had passed, and 
what portended. 

11 A silent tear rolled over her cheek, but then she lifted the 
dark blue eye, and with firm voice and spiriijftaid : 

" ' Hard, indeed, it is to leave our home, but harder to be 
separated from God and our faith ; yes, this is impossible. 
You have not deceived yourself in me, William ; I follow you, 
and God will give me strength to be a true and faithful wife, 
and devoted mother to our children. We leave earthly goods, 
kind and sympathizing friends, all dear and valued treasures, 
but we will find others across the sea, and the most precious 
of all, we will keep our faith in God. If we forsake not him, 
he will forsake not us. Let us go, then, in peace and hope.' 

" ' I knew this was what you would say,' said William, press- 
ing her to his heart, and the grandfather placed his hand upon 
their heads saying : ' It is decided — -we remain steadfast in the 
faith. — Amen.' And the old, peaceful smile curled the lip of 
the grandfather ; they pressed each other's hands and returned 
the house. 

11 Quickly spread the news through the village that Fathei 



398 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

Emanuel, with all his family, would cross the seas, and it was 
a sad knell to many hearts. Those who had not the same faith 
had still for them the sincerest regard, for their honest indus- 
try, uprightness, and friendly interest in their toils. Many tried 
to persuade him from his purpose, and some resolved to accom- 
pany him when they found him firm. 

" Soon was everything arranged. The house was sold, and 
1 truly the Lord is with us/ said father Emanuel, as he placed 
the shining gold thalers in the coffer. ' The labor we have 
bestowed upon our land has brought its reward. Both house 
and land were purchased at their full worth, when it was evi- 
dent they needed no improvements. If God continues by us 
we may look forward quietly to the future. But let us not 
linger, dreading what can't be avoided. Partings are sad, but 
are not made leil so by delay. I have engaged a wagon and 
two horses, that we may take with us to the new world a 
few things that have been dear to us in the old ; now choose 
which they shall be, but only the most necessary and most 
valued, that the wagon may not be overladen/ 

" But, oh ! how many there are from which father and mother 
and children think they cannot separate, or at least, with heavy 
hearts, must leave in the old home — the old chair in the corner 
by the stove ; the great chest filled with the treasures of fine 
linen ; the big table by which the grandfather played when a 
little boy ; the old clock, blackened with the smoke and dust of 
half a century ; the little wheel on which the dear grandmother 
had spun many a yard of fine linen ; the oak settle, which had 
afforded rest after so many weary hours, and so many, many 
others to which were linked the sweetest remembrances. Alas ! 
how could she choose — the whole household would she have liked 
to pack into the wagon. But though the wagon was large, it 



* GOING TO AMERICA. 399» 

would not hold a fourth part, and not a tenth part could be 
permitted to go. The grandfather still shook his head, ' too 
much — too much, although to his heart they were not less 
dear, and when he took from the wagon many things and put 
them back into the house, a tear fell from the eye of mother or 
children in sorrowful resignation. 

" But the children indeed, what would they not have taken 
with them ? Friz brought all the playthings, though they had 
long ceased to be used. The great rocking-horse was tugged 
down from the garret, and Maria brought her dolls and cooking 
apparatus, and picture-books. The last the grandfather per- 
mitted to pass, but the others must be returned to the lumber- 
room, at which the children cried heartily. 

" ' That which is useful first/ said the grandfather, ' play- 
things will be found as plenty on the other side lUr the sea. We 
have all to sacrifice something, and must not allow the heart to 
be heavy. Ah, but what have you there ? Books — I thought 
there were already enough upon the wagon, Maria V 

" ' But these are my school books, the singing-book and the 
Holy Bible/ answered the little one, shily, fearing to be sent 
back again. But was pleasantly surprised to hear, ' The Sing- 
ing Book and the Holy Bible : yes, hand them here, they are the 
most needful of all our possessions. Hand them here, they shall 
have the best place, if half the goods must oe uuladen to receive 
them. Give me the Bible, my child, it isg our great treasure, 
and will be to us the richest consolation in our new home. Here 
it shall rest, that we may also have it handy by the way ; and 
now enough ; the wagon is full, not an inch more for anything. 
In the morning we can take our seats, and commence the long 
journey.' Many things still stand around which they would 
so gladly take, and the young wife lingers with the hope of 



400 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

securing room for at least a few. But the grandfather still 
says ' no/ and they enter mournfully the half-empty house. 

" ' Now all is ready/ said Father Emanuel, ' we have only 
to put the horses to the wagon in the morning, and take our 
places. Courage, children, courage. Lift up the head, my 
daughter, and look to God for consolation. He will guide us 
through the dark valley, if we only put our trust in him. Take 
courage, there is yet a sadder leave-taking than any we have 
had yet, a more painful farewell to say than to house and farm. 
You understand, my daughter, and you, William, and the child- 
ren. Ah, yes, you have thought of it as well as I.' 

" Well did all understand what the grandfather meant — a 
visit to the peaceful churchyard, to look once more upon the 
green mound which inclosed the remains of her, whom they so 
loved in life, aW who was not less dear in death. 

" They went. The grandfather first, then William with Anna, 
then Frederic with Maria, hand in hand. Silent, thoughtful, they 
wended their way, not through the public street, for their feel- 
ings were too sacred to be exposed to the gaze of the indiffer- 
ent ; but along a side path where a green hedge concealed 
them from view. 

" The sun was almost behind the hills as they reached the 
quiet churchyard, but the golden beams still played among 
the branches of the cypress and linden that shaded the grave. 
Across the blue vault of heaven swept the rose- tin-ted clouds, 
and a light evening breeze whispered among the branches. 
Silently gathered the litttle circle around the remains of the 
sleepers in this holy place — it is the grave of the grandmother 
— and by her side are her parents, the three hillocks blooming 
with the fresh flowers of spring. They knelt together, the 
grandfather uncovered his grey head, and clasped his hards in 



GOING TO AMERICA. 401 

prayer. Their tears fell like dew-drops upon the perfume- 
exhaling petals, and gleamed like diamonds in the setting sun. 

" They remained long in this humble posture. The grand- 
father rose first, and lifted his moistened eyes to heaven, 
1 Farewell ye glorified ones/ said he, with a voice trembling 
with suppressed emotion, 'farewell, never more can our feet 
tread this holy spot, where you rest in peace ; but We know that 
your blessing descends upon our heads as you look down upon 
us from above. We must leave your terrestrial remains, but 
our thoughts will still linger here, and your glorified spirits 
will accompany us to the strange land — the strange distant 
land to which we go. We separate from your honored dust, 
but not from your imperishable spirits, whose holy presence my 
soul ever feels. Farewell, and peace remain forever upon this 
holy dust.' 

11 With trembling hand, then the grandfather plucked a flower 
from each grave, and pressed them to his heart. Then turning, 
with one last lingering look to the sacred relics, all wended 
their way homeward. It was indeed a sad parting, but though 
deep grief troubled their spirits, a holy peace filled their hearts. 

11 Scarcely was the morning dawned, when the household of 
the grandfather was astir. The father and son busied them- 
selves in the stable, fed and harnessed the horses, and made all 
things ready for the journey. The mother dressed the children 
and prepared the breakfast for the last time in the old home. 
During the meal no word was spoken, for the hearts were too 
full ; but when it was finished the grandfather said : * It is 
time. If we would leave the village before the neighbors are 
up, to spare our hearts the pangs of more farewell words, we 
must not linger. All is ready. Children come.' 

" ' Only one last look through the house where we have so 



402 PEASANT LIFE IN GEEMANY. 

long lived in prosperity and happiness/ begged the mother ; 
1 yet once more, that the picture of the old home may be deep 
printed in my soul.' 

" ' Good, good !' said the grandfather, ' that is a longing 
of the heart which I also feel, and we will go together.' 

" Thus they wander through every room and chamber from 
top to bottom ; visit the kitchen and the store-room, and lastly 
to the honeysuckle bower in the garden, where they had spent 
so many glad evening hours. Secretly the mother plucked a 
root from the earth, a charm, and put it in a little flower-pot 
that she had concealed in her satchel. ' This,' thought she, 
■ will be a sweet remembrance upon the sea, and in the far off 
new home.' But she had not done it so carefully that Wil- 
liam, her husband, did not observe her — ' Eight, dear Anna,' 
said he, ' this will indeed be a charm, and shall be nourished 
to become another bower, to bud and blossom in the wilder- 
ness, and remind us of our love in the old home.' 

" Now all was ready. They took their seats in the wagon, 
and only the man-servant and maiden, who remained to serve 
their successors, were by to speak parting words. 

" ' Farewell,' said Father Emanuel to them, ' many thanks 
for your love and good wishes. Eemain upright and true, and 
the blessing of God will attend you.' Now clasping the reins, 
he said : ' Forget us not, as we will keep you in kind re- 
membrance. Opon the door ; part we must, and no longer stay. 
Farewell, all, and God be with you.' 

" ' Farewell, Father Emanuel ; farewell, young master ; 
farewell, dear mistress Anna ; farewell, dear, dear children,' 
cried they, and reached their hands for a last fond grasp. 
Then said the grandfather — ' Go on,' and the wagon rolled 
through the great gate. 



THE PARTING. 4U3 

" Already, the day before, had the grandfather bid the neigh- 
bors good bye, and wished not the pain of saying the words 
again. All appeared to be slumbering quietly ; not one did 
they see by door or window as they passed, and he said, ' It is 
well. God bless them all. Before they awake we shall be far 
away.' 

" But the grandfather had not rightly appreciated the love 
of the good neighbors. They had well marked the prepara- 
tions for an early departure, and had been long up to make 
ready for the last farewell. The last few houses of the village 
lay in a wood, through which the wagon must pass, and here 
had they all assembled : young men and women ; old men and 
little children ; and as the emigrants approached, came rushing 
out, and so filling the street that the horses were compelled to 
stop. 

" ' Oh, my good friends, and dear neighbors/ said the grand- 
father, ' this is too much — it is not well ; you make still more 
bitter the parting hour.' 

" 'No, no; that will we not,' said a grey-haired peasant, 
coming near. • We will see you all once more, that we may 
wish you joy and peace on life's pathway, and the blessing of 
the Lord, which you so richly deserve. We shall keep you in 
good remembrance, and think of you with love, for you were 
at all times a true, kind, and upright neighbor. It is with 
deep sorrow that we see you go, and long will your absence 
make a void in our village and in our hearts. But we know 
that necessity compels you to go forth, and blame ye not. God 
be with you, Father Emanuel ; God be with you and yours ! 
May he bless your departure, and your arrival with rich mea- 
sure, so that you may find in a new land, all blessings and 
happiness from which here you must flee. Farewell all, ami 
in our hearts and prayers we will remember you.' 



404 PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. 

" ' Thank you, dear friends and neighbors/ said the grand- 
father, with deep emotion. ' Thank you for all your kindness 
and love. Often shall our thoughts turn to you, and our 
prayers ask the blessing of God upon you all. Farewell, and 
God be with you ; gladly would I have spent with you the 
remainder of my days ; but we are called and must go. Fare 
well, all, farewell ; if we meet not again on earth, may we 
hope to meet above to part no more. Farewell, dear neighbors 
and friends — once more let us shake hands, and then we 
must go/ 

" All gathered round and stretched out the hand, which was 
silently pressed, and wet with tears, when the wagon moved 
forward, and the villagers returned to their homes." 

We need not tell of the arrival of the emigrant, to American 
readers, though the author makes the new home more at- 
tractive than the old, nor describe the homes of German settlers 
scattered all over the western prairies ; but we are sure none 
will read this picture without feeling for them a more kindly 
sympathy, and bidding them a more kindly welcome. The 
mixture of the German and the American element, makes the 
best compound for republican citizens, and when their children's 
children shall come back to the Fatherland, with spirits born 
and nourished upon free soil and by free air, the dry bones of 
these crumbling dynasties will awake, and the tocsin of freedom 
ring the death-knell of tyranny once and forever. 



APPENDIX 



Appendix A. — {Page 55.) 
BARON VON STEIN. 

Henry Frederick Charles vom and zum Stein (of and at Stein) was born 
in 1757 at Nassau on the Lahn. His father was one of the higher and older 
nobility, who held immediately of the empire, an independent lord in his 
own domain. The baron was intended by his father to enter the service of the 
imperial government, and was sent first to Gottingen to study public law and 
history, and then to Wetzlar, the seat of the imperial chamber. IftiTSO, he 
entered the Prussian service as director of the mines of Westphalia, at Wet- 
ter. In 1784, he was ambassador at Aschaffenburg. 

He was then made President of the Westphalian Chamber, in which capa- 
city he continued until 1804, when he was called to Berlin and made minister 
of finance, and of trade, and commerce, by Frederick William IH. He held 
this office until 1807, and then resigned it soon after the battle of Jena, in 
consequence of some differences with the cabinet. But he was a man whose 
services in that emergency could not be spared to the state. He was called 
back by the king in the summer of the same year, and made prime minister. 

After the battle of Jena, not Prussia only, but the whole of Germany, lay 
prostrate at the feet of Bonaparte. The nations were broken, crushed, bleed- 
ing, helpless. How to raise Prussia from its supineness, and infuse vitality 
into the lifeless mass of the people was the problem to be solved. Here was 
a task worthy of the best talents and best efforts of the foremost man of the 
times. Stein saw that the weakness of the nation lay in the slavery of the 
people, and he boldly applied the remedy. By a single decree, he converted 
a nation of serfs into a free people. 

But Stein's sentiments were revealed to the French by an intercepted let- 
ter, and Napoleon, who watched and controlled every court of continental 
Europe, directed him to be removed, and give place to Hardenberg. Stein 
was banished to Prague, where he lived until 1812. He then went to St. 
Petersburgh, having escaped the vigilance of the French spies and police. 

Stein came with Alexander to Germany in 1813, and was present at tbj 

405 



406 APPENDIX. 

battles of Lutzen and Bautzen. During that year, he held the office of 
Supreme Director of the Interior Central Board of Administrators cf the con- 
quered provinces of Germany, until they should be finally disposed of by a 
general congress. But with the congress of Vienna and the Holy Alliance, 
he had nothing to do. He held diplomacy and compromise in sovereign con- 
tempt. He had done his part to awake the people from their slumbers, to 
organize and animate the league that accomplished the overthrow of Napo- 
leon, and the emancipation of Germany. 

In 1816, he retired to private life, and was no more heard oi m connection 
with office and government. He died at Coppenberg, in Westphalia, a favo- 
rite residence, on the 29th June, 1831. 

Stein's opinions, measures, and character, deserve to be better known. It 
has been the policy of the Prussian government, since 1816, to suppress all 
publications partaking of his spirit, illustrating his measures, and promoting 
the reforms and progressive improvements which he initiated. He was 
vexed and pained at the reaction which commenced at Berlin, under the in- 
fluence of the bureaucratists and court minions, who, after others had fought 
and won the battle of freedom, again crowded into their old places, and pos- 
sessed the ears of the king. 

Frederick William was a good, kind-hearted, well-meaning monarch, facile 
in his promises, but without strength or resolution in performance. He 
falsified nearly all his pledges. He delayed and postponed the promised 
reforms. The constitution, so often just ready for promulgation, was never 
perfected. He could not give up his cherished absolutism. Since 1815, the 
ministersof the king have done everything to make the royal word a mockery 
and shame. Books have been prohibited, imaginary conspiracies have been 
suppressed, professors have been deposed. Luther has been banished, the 
free exercise of religion trammeled, and the expression of liberal opinions in 
politics sternly repressed. 

Stein, although a high born nobleman himself, speaks of the native princes 
"as dastardly poltroons, who, intent only on their own preservation, and 
deaf to every feeling of honor and duty, seek safety in their heels ; or titled 
slaves and bailiffs, who, with the substance and the life blood of their sub- 
jects, purchase a few years' lease of a beggarly existence." He adds that 
among them " every sort of extra vileness, weakness, and low sneaking self- 
ishness prevails." 

The reforms introduced by Baron Stein,, and their results, are very briefly 
and clearly stated by Alison in Chapter 48 of his History of Europe : 

" So clearly were his ideas formed, and so decided his conviction as to 
the only means which remained of reinstating the public affairs, that he com- 
menced at once a vigorous, but yet cautious system of amelioration ; and, 
only four days after his appointment as minister of the interior, a royal decree 
appeared, which introduced a salutary reform into the Constitution. 

" By this ordinance, the peasants and burghers obtained the right, hitherto 
confined to the nobles, of acquiring and holding landed property, while they 
in their turn were permitted, without losing caste, to engage in the pursuit* 
of commerce and industry. Landholders were allowed, under reservation of 
the rights of their creditors, to separate their estates into distinct parcels, 



APPENDIX. 407 

and alienate them to different persons. Every species of slavery, whether 
contracted by birth, marriage, or agreement, was prohibited subsequent to 
the 11th of November, 1810 ; and every servitude, corvee, or obligation of 
service or rent, other than those founded on the rights of property or express 
agreement, was forever abolished. By a second ordinance, published six 
weeks afterward, certain important franchises were conferred on municipa- 
lities. By this wise decree, which is in many respects the magna charta oJ 
the Prussian burghs, it was provided that the burghers should enjoy coun- 
cillors of their own election, for regulating all local and municipal concerns ; 
that a third of the number should go out by rotation, and be renewed by an 
election every year ; that the council thus chosen should assemble twice a 
year to deliberate on the public affairs ; that two burgomasters should be at 
the head of the magistracy, one of whom should be chosen by the king, from 
a list of three presented, and the other by the councillors; and that the 
police of the burgh should be administered by a syndic appointed for twelve 
years, and who should also have a seat in the municipal council. The admi- 
nistration of the Haute Police, or that connected with the state, was reserved 
to government. By a third ordinance, an equally important alteration was 
made in favor of the numerous class of debtors, whom the public calamities 
had disabled from performing their engagements, by prohibiting all demand 
f<*r the capital sum till the 24th of June, 1810, providing, at the same time, 
for the punctual payment of the interest, under pain of losing the benelit of 
the ordinance. Thus, at the very moment that France, during the intoxica- 
tion consequent on the triumphs of Jena and Friedland, was losing the last 
remnant of the free institutions which had been called into existence during 
the fervor and crimes of the Bevolution, Prussia, amid the humiliation of un- 
precedented disasters, and when groaning under the weight of foreign chains, 
was silently relaxing the fetters of the feudal system, and laying the founda- 
tion, in a cautious and guiltless reformation of experienced grievances, for 
the future erection of those really free institutions which can never be estab- 
lished on any other basis than those of justice, order, and religion."" 



Appendix B. — [Page 57.) 

FEUDAL SYSTEM— SERFDOM. 

Some knowledge of the feudal system is necessary to enable the reader to 
comprehend the present condition of Europe. It must not be supposed that 
the feudal system was a regular political organization, like a constitutional 
government of modern days, or that it was a system of laws like the Code 
Napoleon. Indeed, that state of society called the feudal system can hardlv 
be entitled to the name of system. It was different in different ages and dii' 



408 APPENDIX. 

ferent countries. It was one thing in France, another in England, and still 
another in Germany. It was greatly modified in one country and anothe? by 
conflicting and counteracting influences, such as ancient laws, manners, cus- 
toms ; and everywhere it had to encounter the open or secret hostility of the 
Papal church. In fact feudalism never existed as a harmonious system. It 
never had any fixed arrangement of parts, any established order, but every- 
where presented strange incongruities and glaring inconsistencies. 

It very nearly resembled the patriarchal society of the times of Abraham, 
or the tribal associations of Arabia, or the clanships of Ireland and Scotland. 

All the members of a tribe or clan claimed descent from a common ances- 
try, and bore a common name, as Clan Campbell, or Clan Connel, and stran- 
gers adopted into the tribe were bound to intermarry with the clan, and to 
take its name. 

The district of territory occupied by a clan was considered common pro- 
perty, and the shares were subject to distribution according to the discretion 
of the local chieftain. It is nearly certain that such was the form of govern- 
ment among all the aboriginal tribes of Europe. The accounts left us by 
Caesar in his Commentaries, and Tacitus in his Germania, and by geographers 
and historians of the Roman Empire, justify this inference. The Germans 
and the Normans, in their invasions of western Europe, brought with them 
the remembrance of their clanships. In the distribution of the conquered 
countries, however, the principle of the family and property union was ne- 
cessarily conformed to the altered circumstances of the victors. 

The emigrating warriors were from different clans, and the lands to be 
divided and shared were of larger extent than their deserted homes. The 
family connection was sundered and could never be revived. In the place of 
it associations were formed by chance or design, or imposed by force. 

Dominion imposed by force was the element of the feudal system. It did 
not spring at once into complete existence, but was of gradual growth. 
Wherever the system prevailed it was based solely on brute force. 

The social influence of feudalism can be best understood by considering the 
position of the holder of a fief, and the state of society by which he was sur- 
rounded. The baronial castle is the prominent feature in the landscape. It 
is situated upon some rock or inaccessible precipice, fortified so as to resist 
the attacks of rival barons, insurgent vassals, or royal power. It is garri- 
soned by favorite dependents or hired soldiers, ready to attend their lord to 
war or to the chase. In the neighborhood of the castle is the feudal village, 
a rude collection of hovels, occupied by the serfs who cultivate the baron's 
estates. They are not bound to him by any moral or political bond. He 
treats them as vanquished aliens ; he despises their occupation, and hates 
industry in every form. They know little of the domestic habits of the castle, 
and he nothing of theirs. His power over them is absolute — he gives them 
laws, fixes the amount of their rents and taxes, punishes them for real or 
fancied offences, permits or forbids the accumulation of property, and is often, 
from sheer ignorance, or unintentionally, a tyrant. Out of his contempt for 
industry and husbandry, and in order to enjoy the noble pastime of the 
chase, he establishes sanguinary laws for the preservation of game, without 
regard to the interest of the serfs, interfering with their means of subsistence. 



APPENDIX. 409 

and their ability to avert the exactions to which they were subject, for per- 
mission to till the ground. His utter disregard for the rights and sufferings of 
his vassals, his forest laws and game laws, by which their means of subsist- 
ence were sacrificed for mere sport, precluded any kindliness of feeling be- 
tween the baron and his vassals. The latter felt that they were the sport 
and victims of the capricious will of irresponsible tyrants. Hence the intense 
hatred with which the rural population throughout Europe regarded their 
feudal masters, and hence the fierce and fearful retaliations exercised by the 
insurgent peasantry during the middle ages. 

The feudal baron had no friends except his wife and children, his domestics 
and military retainers, and these also constituted his sole society. He was 
generally at feud with his neighbor barons, and at variance with the royal 
power. He was an independent chieftain within his fief, which was a state in 
itself. He administered justice, levied taxes, and made laws. True, he ac- 
knowledged a superior lord or suzerain, to whom he was bound for homage, 
allegiance, and military service ; but the performance of these duties de- 
pended upon the power of the suzerain to enforce the obb'gation. 

Some authors have described feudabsm as a system of mutual rights and 
duties, with graduated ranks from the monarch down to the meanest vassal. 
In some countries the organization was much more complete than in others ; 
but it was nowhere perfect. The main principle of feudality was at war with 
unity and order. The lords of fiefs, who were at the same time sovereigns 
and owners of the land, never yielded more than a personal service to their 
suzerain. Each was to the other an ally or an enemy, and in all cases wholly 
independent. Homage was a characteristic of nobility. Peasants could not 
do homage. Every owner of a fief was a gentleman, and the equal in rank 
of every other, although it comprised but a few acres of land. The greatest 
lord was quite willing to hold a fief under another less wealthy and powerful 
than himself, and in return to do him homage and fealty. Even kings held 
lands and jurisdictions under their own subjects. Even the oriflamme, the 
national standard of the kings of France, was originally the banner of a small 
barony, for which the kings were vassals to the abbey of St. Denis. William 
the Conqueror held his Duchy of Normandy as a fief of the kings of France. 
Kings were only regarded as members of the feudal aristocracy, and royalty 
only as the fief on which the rest depended. 

In Germany royalty was stubbornly resisted for ages. Austria was for cen- 
turies only a union of several distinct nationalities under the suzerainty of the 
Hapsburg family. 

The several states stoutly maintained their independence, and refused to 
become amalgamated into one nation. Austria, Bohemia, Carinthia, and 
Hungary, are as distinct now in laws, manners, customs, and language, as 
five hundred years ago. Prussia is a modern kingdom, not yet two centuries 
old. It is now only fifty years since the peasants have been emancipated, 
and feudalism abolished. The old spirit yet exists in the descendants of the 
feudal families. In France, feudalism all but annihilated royalty. The great 
lords treated with the crown on terms of equality. It was not till the four- 
teenth century, that the crown obtained a decided preponderance. 

William the Conqueror introduced feudalism into England. He parcelled 

18 



410 APPENDIX. 

out the country among his followers, but he took care to reserve to himself 
such a share of the plunder as to give him an unquestioned supremacy. Be- 
sides, he violated the feudal rule, and required all the feudal lords to do him 
homage and fealty ; in the form of homage from one lord to his vassal, he 
inserted a claim saving the homage and fealty due to the king. He retained 
in his own hands more than a thousand manors, the lordship of all the great 
towns, the right to nominate all the great officers of state, and for the admin- 
istration of justice. He did not grant to his vassals whole counties as was 
the case in France, hut gave them lands in different counties, so as to divide 
their possessions and diminish their power. 

In France, the feudal aristocracy defied, and overrode the monarchy, and 
the king and the people coalesced for mutual protection. The result was an 
arbitrary monarchy, which crushed out the spirit of the nobility, and enslaved 
all alike. The revolution of 1792 was the uprising of a people, who could 
no longer bear oppression, and were not fit for freedom. 

In England, the Norman aristocracy were compelled to unite with the Saxon 
people, to protect themselves against the power of the crown. The result 
was the annihilation of royal authority, and the early extinction of feudalism 
and serfdom. The first instance of such a union was under the usurper Stephen, 
the second under the tyrant John, from whom the barons exacted Magna Charta 
at Runnymede. The wars of the Roses, in which two rival branches of the 
royal family strove for the crown, came near extinguishing the Norman race 
in England. The people did not care which party won the bauble for which 
they were fighting, but were glad to see them worry and destroy each other. 
So far back as the year 1290, the parliament of England enacted a law, called 
the statute of Quia Emptores, which prevented the creation of any new, or 
subordinate fiefs and throttled feudalism almost as soon as it stepped its foot 
on English soil. 

In Germany, however, the system obtained a strong foothold, and has ex- 
isted with slight modifications down to the present day. The petty duke- 
doms, margravates, and principalities of Germany, have resisted the whole 
force of the monarchical tendencies of five centuries, and still exist in form as 
they did in the time of Otho the Great. The French revolution, and the ava- 
lanche of Napoleon's armies, awoke the German princes to a sense of their 
weakness, and the German people to a perception of their rights. 

The aristocracy of Europe still cling to their titles, and worship the dead 
past. But the people, the long despised peasants, the laboring classes, are 
slowly gaining knowledge and power. Education, limited as it is, under 
censorship, and guided by government teachers and royal rules, is surely, 
though not rapidly, elevating the masses, and fitting them to assert their 
natural rights. 

It will be interesting to inquire into the actual condition of the peasants, 
during the long ages in which they have been the servants of their feudal 
masters. 

Let it not be imagined, however, that serfdom was peculiar to the feudal 
system. Slavery has existed in some form, since the earliest records of his- 
tory. The Egyptians held slaves. The Patriarchs of the Bible hold slaves, 
bondmen and bondwomen. The cultivators of the soil, and the house s. r 



APPENDIX. 41 _ 

vaiits of the Assyrians and Persians were slaves. The free citizens among all 
the states of Greece were hardly a tenth part of the population. The same 
remark is true of the Romans. Prisoners of Avar were universally sold into 
slavery among all the nations of antiquity. The Gauls and the Germans in 
the days of Caesar and Tacitus, owned slaves. Indeed slavery has been the 
condition of agricultural and mechanical laborers in all ages, and among all 
people, unless perhaps, China may be an exception. 

In the days of Charlemagne, the feudal system was not yet known. We 
read, that he gave his friend Alcuin broad lands, upon which there were 
twenty thousand slaves. In his time, as always before, prisoners of war 
were made slaves. He himself, took captive, and transplanted whole nations 
from their native seats to distant countries, and made slaves of them. After 
Italy had been conquered by the emperor, and many rich fiefs bestowed upon 
the Roman Pontiff, a violent controversy arose between the popes and barons, 
the latter accusing the former of winking at, and making a profit out of the 
slave trade carried on between the Jews and the Saracens of Africa. The 
Jews were the money brokers of the middle ages, as well as the slave deal- 
ers. It is more than probable that they encouraged the invasion of Spain by 
the Moors, and of France by the Normans, in revenge for the persecutions to 
which they were subjected by the intolerant Christians. 

Wherever Charles extended his conquests, he acquired more lands to bestow 
upon his courtiers and great men, who merely valued their vast estates for 
the number of slaves upon them, and the income that could be derived from 
them. His conquests reduced to slavery millions who had before been free- 
men, and every country that was reduced by his arms was enfeebled by com- 
ing under his sway. He ruled over a vast empire, in which he himself sowed 
the seeds of dissolution. It fell to pieces at his death, not so much through 
the imbecility of his successors, as the inherent weakness of the social 
fabric. His battles and slaughtering campaigns, his devastations of whole 
countries by fire and sword, his repeated invasions to quell ever-recurring 
rebellions, his confiscations, his charters to towns, churches, convents and 
monasteries, his gifts to bishops and barons, his edicts and laws, and his capitu- 
laries to regulate the government of the crown lands, all had not the slight- 
est reference to the rights and interests of the people, but treated them as the 
merest chattels, and left them not only without liberty and property, but with- 
out hope. 

The four centuries succeeding Charlemagne were, throughout Europe, 
marked with disorder, turbulence, violence and bloodshed. There was no law 
but that of the strongest. The feudal system grew out of this confusion. It 
was during this time that the numerous castles that bristle on every mountain 
height and defensible steep, were erected by the feudal lords for purposes of 
self-protection and general plunder. 

William the Conqueror was the first prince whose power held in check the 
turbulent and independent spirit of the nobles. In his own youth he had 
witnessed the worst scenes of lawlessness and brutal ferocity. His tutor and 
favorite councillor was murdered in the room where William was asleep. 

The murderer, in his turn, was slain in his bed without form of trial. His 
dukedom was rent and torn by quarrels, robberies, and assassinations. A 



412 APPENDIX. 

conspiracy was formed to dethrone and kill him. In his twentieth year he 
had to fight a battle against his rebellious vassals. To subdue them he made 
use of the sword, poison, and the assassin's dagger. He Avas merely the chief 
savage of the brutal clan. 

A brief account of one family will exhibit the manners and character of the 
nobility for four centuries in all Europe. 

William de Belesme, Count of Alencjon, surnamed Talvas, for some unknown 
reason had revolted against Duke Robert, William's father ; but being closely 
besieged in his castle, he was forced to surrender at discretion. The Duke 
would not grant him pardon until he presented himself before the army with 
naked feet and head, a saddle on his back, and a bridle in his mouth, as a 
beast for the duke to ride. This degradation broke his heart ; he bequeathed 
the task of revenge to his knightly sons, and their deeds of ruffian violence 
filled all Normandy with confusion. The eldest was torn in pieces by the 
people, the second fell by the stroke of a lance in an insignificant skirmish, 
and the third was murdered in prison by some barons, whose sense of out- 
rageous wrong was too keen to allow of their waiting for the slow process of 
legal redress. William Talvas, the youngest, the most turbulent and the 
most cruel of the family, still survived ; the death of his brothers had put him 
into possession of large estates, and allowed him to gratify his evil propensi- 
ties with impunity. His wife, Hildeburga, disapproved of his conduct; the 
warmth of her remonstrances displeased him, and he caused her to be 
strangled, while kneeling at prayers in the chapel of the castle. He sought 
another wife, and invited to the nuptials, William of Giroy, a noble knight, 
who was said to have been an unsuccessful candidate for the lady's hand. 
Giroy, though warned of the peril of treachery, accepted the invitation; he 
was received at the castle of Alencon with every appearance of courtesy and 
friendship ; Talvas even invited the young knight to remain and keep com- 
pany with the bride, while he went to enjoy the pleasures of the chase. 
Scarcely, however, had Talvas quitted the castle, when his servants, accord- 
ing to his orders, seized on the unhappy Giroy, thrust out his eyes, cut off 
his ears and nose, and then drove him out of the castle to find his way home 
the best way he could. Many similar anecdotes of this count's ferocity are 
related in the contemporary chronicles. But he was at length punished by the 
revolt of his son Arnold, a son every way worthy of such a father. He raised 
the vassals of Talvas, expelled the count from his domains, refused to make 
the smallest allowance for his support, and left him to die in poverty and exile. 
Arnold himself, after a brief career of iniquity, was murdered in his bed. 
Such and similar atrocities were common throughout France and the whole 
of Europe. 

When the nobles were thus cruel and treacherous to each other, what must 
have been their treatment of the unarmed and helpless serfs? Can we won- 
der at the unquenchable hatred of the peasants towards the aristocracy ? 

A volume would not suffice to give an account of the oppressions of the 
people through the long centuries from Charlemagne to the present time. 
Let those who desire to inform themselves refer to the chronicles of the mid- 
dle ages, now rendered accessible to all, in the cheap publications of Bohn, 
in his antiquarian library. The story of the pasturers in Normandy, of the 



APPENDIX. 413 

Jaquerie in France, will show how well the peasants imitated their masters in 
the arts of rapine and cruelty. These outbreaks were followed, at intervals 
for two centuries, by risings in various parts of the kingdom; and ended 
only in that volcanic eruption, the Revolution, which for a time swept kings, 
nobles, and priests, and every form of aristocracy from the face of France. 

The tales of Robin Hood, William of Cloudesly, and Adam Bell, and the old 
Saxon ballads exhibit the spirit with which the sturdy peasantry of England 
resisted the assaults of feudalism. The rebellions of Wat Tyler and Jack 
Cade have never yet been fully and fairly treated of by any historian. The 
conquest of England was in 1067, Wat Tyler's rebellion in 1380, and Jack 
Cade's in 1450. The wars of the Roses, which immediately followed the last 
insurrection, so crippled the nobles, and weakened their power, that the mid- 
dle and laboring classes have ever since, when united, been more than a 
match for the titled aristocracy, and have obtained, through parliament and 
by legislation and judicial decisions, repeated recognitions of their rights, and 
oomplete emancipation. 

In Italy, the power of the bishops of Rome, the growth of commerce, and 
the introduction of Grecian and Roman learning from Constantinople, had 
broken up the feudal system as early as the year 1300, but the merchant 
aristocracy of the cities, and the papal power have been more disastrous to 
the people — more paralyzing and oppressive than feudalism itself. 

In Germany the feudal system remained in full vigor down to the year 1495, 
when the Emperor Maximilian the First published his famous edict for the 
establishment of the public peace of the empire. Before this time every 
German noble, holding his fief from the emperor, was a pettj^ monarch in 
his own domain, owing no allegiance but to the emperor, and acknowledg- 
ing no authority but the remote, and scarcely felt, supremacy of the empire. 
Among the rights secured to them by imperial edict, was that of waging 
private war called Faustrecht (club law), after a three days' notice by way 
of defiance, called a Fehdbrief. Each baron had a fortress, from which he 
issued to make predatory incursions upon his neighbors, or to plunder the 
merchants who dared to cross his territories. Several of them would form 
leagues for mutual defence, or to make attacks upon the more powerful 
princes, the free towns, or the ecclesiastical states. 

While the great princes, the bishops, and free towns, approved the edict 
and combined to enforce it, the petty nobles resisted it. The struggle was 
fierce and bloody in many places, and while it was in progress, the peasants 
and bondsmen remained in the most abject state of ignorance and oppression. 
The nobles and princes were only fighting for the power to oppress, and 
whichever party might succeed, the peasants would have merely a change 
of masters. Peasant insurrections burst forth which resembled in extent, 
and in atrocity, the Jaquerie of France, and that of Wat Tyler in England. 
One of the most formidable of these peasant risings was in the time of Luther, 
and the great reformer, patronized and protected by princes, fulminated the 
most coarse and bitter denunciations against them. The insurgents were 
beaten, and the aristocracy kept them In slavish subjection, until the decree 
of 1807, by which they were set free throughout Prussia. Similar decrees 
have since, in other German states, and in the Austrian empire, emancipate 



414: APPENDIX. 

nearly all the serfs. But personal liberty has not been accompanied by poli- 
tical freedom. Old laws and customs, absurd municipal regulations, restric- 
tive duties and imports, the laws regulating trade, labor, marriage, and the 
right of residence and removal from place to place, continually remind the 
people of old oppressions, and bitterly impress them with the fact that per- 
sonal liberty is not the whole of freedom. 

In all the feudal countries, the mass of the population, aside from the nobi- 
lity, was divided into three classes — slaves, villani, and freemen. The first 
had no right, but, like cattle, were treated and sold as the chattels of their 
master. The second were attached to the soil, adscripti gleba, and were 
transferred with the fief; bought and sold as a part of the real estate. The 
freemen were at first numerous. But as the feudal system gained ground, 
the small proprietors gave up their estates, and consented to hold them by 
feudal tenure, as the tenants and liege men of some powerful lord who could 
give them protection from the robbery and rapine of the petty barons. In 
many parts of France and Germany, however, the small proprietors persist- 
ently asserted their freedom, and held on to their possessions. But the 
greater part of these independent proprietaries were situated remote from 
castles and cities, in districts far from the traveled paths of commerce, and 
distant from the beaten tracks of armies. To distinguish them from feudal 
lands, they were called allodial. The terms are the converse of each other. 
An allodial estate is one that is not subject to any rent, due, or exaction what- 
ever, from the owner to any higher or superior authority. The allodial tenure 
is now established as the legal ownership of land in most civilized countries, 
in the United States, in France, England, in most of the German States, and 
is about to be introduced into Russia. 

Perhaps a better understanding of what serfdom actually was in other 
countries, and a better appreciation of the present condition of Germany, 
may be gained from a glance at the existing serfdom of Russia. 

This great empire has only a little while been numbered among either 
Christian or civilized nations. Only a little while have her higher classes 
been on anything like an equality with those of Germany and Scandinavia, 
only a little while has she been once thought of as a rival, though she is now 
the most gigantic and formidable power on the continent, and makes the 
highest pretensions in all that belongs to nominal civilization. 

The first man who possessed influence over a sufficient number of people 
to accomplish a settled purpose, was Rurik, who came from a little province 
in Sweden, called the country of the Russes. He was therefore a Busss, 
and thus gave name to all this great empire, which has ever since been sub- 
ject to Russian princes. Yet he was little more than a border chief, and 
governed as the head of banditti rules his hordes. Next came four by the 
name of Ivan, whose deeds are thought worthy to be recorded in history, 
but need not figure in the simple annals of the poor, which are our especial 
province. 

Boris Godinoff preceded Peter the Great. From him emanated the first 
formal decree concerning the people. The poor must ever be the servants 
of the rich, and when those in power are unprincipled and tyrannical, those 
who serve them are debased into slaves. In Russia, as yet, the serfs could 



APPENDIX. 415 

change masters at their will, and finding themselves in better condition on 
the farms of large than small proprietors, they moved whenever they be- 
lieved it would be for their interest. Boris Godinoff saw that this perpetual 
migration was an injury to the small proprietors and the general interests of 
agriculture. He therefore issued a decree, which bears the date of Nov. 
21st, 1610, saying, that from this day all migration should cease, and every 
peasant henceforth remain upon the farm where he was when this Ukase or 
decree was issued. 

This measure proved beneficial to the present interest of the small proprie- 
tors and of agriculture, as it was intended, but excited the hatred of the 
large ones, and could not help resulting in final injury to the whole, so that 
ever after they numbered the day, upon which the decree was made, as one 
of the fatal days for the people, the first among the many which followed, in 
obedience to the will of her tyrants. 

The second Ukase, from the same source, was indeed a more terrible blow 
to the freedom and happiness of the humble poor. Until now the number of 
serfs had been limited to prisoners of war, slaves purchased from foreign 
foes, and men who voluntarily sold themselves and their posterity. These 
classes were in no way identified with the free peasants, who cultivated the 
soil, or served as household domestics. When masters for any reason were 
displeased with their servants, they sent them away, and not being able to 
find employment, they often joined bands of robbers, or became professional 
beggars. The second Ukase of Godinoff, therefore, ordained that all who 
had served in the house of any proprietor a certain period, should become 
serfs, entirely at the disposal of their employers, who were not permitted to 
send them away on any pretence. Thus originated this terrible system of 
serfdom, which has been so long the curse and reproach of Russia. Thus fell 
instantly into hopeless bondage thousands and millions of helpless beings, to 
entail the same upon their children and children's children. The Emperor 
Nicholas was often heard to deplore their condition, but he did nothing to 
alleviate it. 

At the time of this decree there were among sixty millions of people forty 
millions of serfs. Over the whole empire, except in the cities, there are only 
two classes — the master and serf. The serf is not allowed to own anything 
in his own right, and if he buys anything must purchase it in the name of his 
master or lord, who may at his pleasure deprive him of it. 

The different orders of nobility in Russia, as at present existing, were insti- 
tuted by Peter the Great, and consist of fourteen classes, all those belonging 
to them being employees of the government. The fourth class and all up to the 
ninth class in the military orders, and up to the fifth in the civil order, confer 
personal nobility. The superior classes confer hereditary nobility, but there 
exists no relation between the classes and the places to which they give the 
right. Sometimes the place is sought in order to obtain the class, and some- 
times the class in order to obtain the place. But though originating with the 
great Peter, it has never been a popular institution among the people, who 
have ever prayed earnestly for its abolishment. 

No proprietor can own serfs without belonging either to the ninth class in 
the military or fifth class in the civil service. Once upon this pinnacle of 



416 APPENDIX. 

greatness, the privilege of trafficking in human flesh is added to his other 
honors. The express word of the law is, that a serf cannot be sold, but with 
the land upon which he resides, yet it is so easily evaded that they are sold 
every day, singly or in numbers, without the least difficulty. In the contract 
the word hire, or rent, is substituted for sale, and one may hire as many serfs 
as he pleases for a hundred years. Another manner of evasion is to bribe 
the officers who record deeds of sale, and in various other ways proprietors 
barter their serfs, who have no security and no hope but in the will of their 
masters. So that without the shame and publicity of a public auction, human 
beings are sold — family ties are broken — mothers torn from their children, 
wives from their husbands, and the heart separated from all it holds dear, and 
those who bid and buy, remove their chattels to a distant province, where 
they may be again sold or rented in the same way — and again any number of 
times it may suit the convenience of those invested with such power ; and so 
often is this done that love of home or birthplace has scarcely time to take 
root in the heart of the Russian peasant. But if it does, and the prospect of 
removal elicits an expression of attachment to the spot of his birth from any 
poor creature, and he prays to be allowed to remain amidst the scenes of his 
childhood, he is very likely beaten to cure him of his folly. 

Alas! how surely power and selfish indulgence burden and corrupt the 
heart. How often it seems that privilege and the means of cultivation destroy 
every germ of humanity in the soul. Those who are free to enjoy every hap- 
piness and luxury, are the least willing to make sacrifices for the happiness 
of others. 

We select a few from among the many stories we have learned, to illustrate 
the condition of those who have no choice but to obey those who rule over 
them, and proving that humanity is everywhere the same. A Eussian 
seigneur is conversing with his guest concerning his serfs, and exclaims : 
" You see you do not know these people — such a race ; you know my wife — 
an angel of goodness : well, she is principled against having married femmes 
de chambre. You see, if they are married they are no longer good for any- 
thing ; children come, and, in fine, how can you expect a girl who is married, 
to hold herself ready to obey the commands of her mistress — to conform to 
her habits? — no, impossible. You know my wife — an angel of goodness; it 
would be difficult to find a woman of such sweetness and sensibility ; her ser- 
vants have not only an easy, pleasant life, but a Paradise. I will tell you a 
story. We — my wife and I — were riding one day in the country, and saw a 
pretty girl standing at her father's door. We stopped to look at her, and my 
wife said: 'I should like her.' We talk with her, and conclude to take her- 
But she is an only daughter—an only child— and her father is unwilling to 
give her up. This is too foolish — we take her, of course — she weeps and 
prays to be left with her father, and he falls on his knees to implore. No 
matter, we can't indulge such selfishness. She goes with us and serves us 
faithfully ten years. Then one day she enters my cabinet without knocking 
or asking permission, and falls on her knees at my feet. Such manners and 
familiarity I do not allow in my servants. A man should not thus lower hia 
dignity. 
" ' Seigneur — father,' said she, ' a favor?' 



APPENDIX. 417 

"•What favor?' 

" ' Permit me to marry.' 

" I said, ' you know, you simpleton, that your mistress has no other femme 
de chambre but you.' 

'• ' Yes, monsieur, but I will serve her just as faithfully afterwards as I have 
to this time.' 

" ' Folly, folly, you know your mistress does not keep married femmcs de 
chambre. 1 

" ' Melanie can take my place.' 

" ' Do you dare to argue with me?' 

" ' It will be as you wish, but ' 

" When I heard this I really feared apoplexy. Nothing wounds me like in. 
gratitude ! I need not tell you that my wife is an angel of goodness. One 
would think the blackest ingratitude would be disarmed before her. I drove 
Ariana from my presence, and would not believe she would longer harbor 
such ungrateful thoughts. I could not believe there could be in a human 
heart such baseness. Five months passed and I began to be at ease again, 
but the sixth month she came again with the same request. I drove her from 
me with anger, and threatened to tell my wife ; but a little afterwards, my 
wife came to me, beside herself with fear and distress. I said : 

'"What is the matter?' 

" 'Ariana is' 

" You will understand — I blush to speak the word. 

" 'Impossible, the wretch !' 

" ' It is Petrouchka the lacquais.' 

" I was confounded ; but as for Petrouchka he was not so very guilty — we 
could easily punish the monkey ; but Ariana, the wretch ! I have no patience 
to speak her name. I could have shaven her head and driven her naked 
through the streets, the ingrate. Such an excellent femme de chambre — such 
a loss to my wife, who is. as you know, an angel of goodness. Of course we 
sent her away ; but my wife — you know my wife — an angel of goodness, and 
she was attached to this creature. Oh, how such ingratitude cuts my heart. 
Ss^r what you will, there is nothing else to be expected of this class of people- 
no delicacy — wolves ; but I have had a lesson," and here he turned away, and, 
adjusting his mantle, endeavored to conquer his agitation ! 

But sometimes marriages are enforced rather than forbidden, for human 
beings are the necessary machines for the aggrandizement of the lord. They 
are obliged to marry when the master chooses, and in the way he commands. 
A srirl of eighteen is compelled to marry a boy of twelve, whose father or 
some other member of the family becomes the father of her children until her 
husband is of age. Machines must be born ! 

There is no power more absolute than that which the Eussian seigneur 
exerts over his serfs — no class of people more helpless than those who serve 
a Russian lord. 

"Who are you?" demanded a gentleman of a man whom he met on the 
banks of a river which watered the lands of the rich lady Aleana Timfana. 
Who are you, and what is your trade ?" 

"I am the fisherman of our lady." 

18* 



4:18 APPENDIX. 

" A fine fisherman yon must be, with not a single boat upon the river." 

"What is the use of a boat if there are no fish?" 

" How long have you been fisherman?" 

" Only seven years." 

" And what were you before ?" 

"Coachman." 

" And why did you leave that business ?" 

" The new lady dismissed the equerries." 

"What lady?" 

" The lady who bought us, Aleana Timfana — you know her — a great lady, 
and no longer young." 

" No ; but why did she make you a fisherman?" 

" God knows. I was at her place of Tambeuf. She called together all the 
people in her service ; when she appeared, we knelt to kiss her hand. After 
this she asked each of us what was our employment. When my turn came 
and I told her I was a coachman, she said : ' A coachman ! A fine coachman, 
I should think, such a looking creature ! You no longer belong to the number 
of my equerries. Go shave your head and cut your hair; you will be in 
future the fisherman of my establishment, and if my fish pond is not kept in 
order you will be called to an account. So you see what is expected of me, 
but I cannot make fish, and should like to know how a fish pond like this is to 
be kept in order.' 

"To whom did you belong before ?" 

" To Serge Sergheitch Pehtiref, who inherited us. I was his coachman in. 
the country, but in the city he had another." 

" You have been a coachman all your life ?" 

" Oh no, before I belonged to him, I was cook when we lived in the coun- 
try, but not in the city." 

" To whom did you belong when you were cook?" 

" To his uncle of whom he inherited us." 

" And of whom did the uncle buy you ?" 

" Of Titania Vacilievna." 

" And who was she ?" 

" Oh, she was the daughter of Bolkoff. She was never married — did you 
not know her ? She inherited us from her father ; she was our mistress iwenty 
years." 

"Were you her cook?" 

" Yes, at first, but afterwards she made me Ko-fi-che-nok." 

" Ko-fi-che-nok ! pray what is that ?" 

" I do not know, only they changed my name from Kouzma to Auritown, 
and I was attached to the office — our mistress ordered it." 

"Your real name was Kouzma ?" 

" Yes, Kouzma." 

" And you were Ko-fi-che-nok seventeen or eighteen years?" 

" No. I was part of the time actor." 

" Bah, what sort of an actor ?" 

" Our lady had a theatre in a large chamber, and I played." 

" And pray what part did you play?" 



APPENDIX. 419 

•' Oh, they dressed me np, and told me to go here and there, and say this 
and that, and I did as they told me. Once I was blind man." 

" What did you do after this?" 

" Next I -was cook again ?" 

"Why did they make yon cook again?" 

" My brother had run away." 

" Well, what did you do when you lived with this lady's father ?" 

"Oh, in the family of her father I was all sorts of things. At first, I was 
errand boy, then postillion— that is, when they drove four horses I was 
mounted on a high saddle upon the left forward horse with a whip in my 
hand. After this, I was hunter." 

" Hunter ! with horses or dogs ?" 

" Oh, both ; but I hurt myself and the horses, and we were both made 
lame. The master was very angry and beat me, and then sent me to be ap- 
prentice to a boot maker in Moscow." 

"What! you were already a man when they made you hunter, and now 
you are sent to be apprentice to a boot maker ?" 

" I was then twenty years old." 

" What ! you were an apprentice twenty years ?" 

"Yes; the master ordered it, and I could not help myself; but he died 
then, and I returned to the village." 

"But when did you serve as apprenticeship as cook?" 

" Oh, they do not need to learn that ; the women cook, and we taste, that 
is all," said the poor man, on whose wasted and jaundiced visage a smile 
tried in vain to play. 

" Well, well ; you have had quite a variety in your day ; what will you do 
now since you are fisherman, and there are no fish?" 

" I do not complain, but thank God that they have made me fisherman." 

" Are you married ? Have you a family ?" 

" Oh no, this is impossible ; our lady does not permit her servants to marry. 
4 God forbid that I should suffer this,' she says." 

" How do you live, have you a salary or any fixed wages ?" 

" A salary ! Oh, sir, they give us food to eat, it is all that is necessary for 
us!" And this he seemed really to think, and to have no idea that it was 
possible for him to fill a higher and better destiny than this of being bandied 
about lake a bale of cotton, subject to the caprices of heartless owners. The 
story is told by a Eussian lord, and therefore cannot be suspected of exagge- 
ration. 

The absolute power which begins at the throne extends to all who exercise 
authority. There are no laws to protect the defenceless, nothing but indivi- 
dual responsibility to which they can appeal. The emperor is an autocrat — 
his will for the moment is law. Whatever may be on the statute book, he 
may at anytime annul to gratify the slightest caprice. Peter the Great wished 
to advance civilization, and exerted his power as autocrat in the way he be- 
lieved would best promote this end. But though his intentions were good, 
he was not infallible, and those who succeeded him were neither so wise not 
so good as he. Yet they were autocrats all the same. If he could have livr i 
n, century longer, he could have constantly improved upon himself; for lie 



420 APPENDIX. 

was ever ready to learn. But many who have succeeded him have been only 
too ready to sacrifice the good of the people to their selfish gratification. 
Even he sanctioned serfdom, and Catharine II. rewarded her paramours with 
serfs ! 

An amusing anecdote is given to show the danger of absolute power and 
absolute obedience with no intermediate steps upon which executioners may 
pause before inflicting the blow, or to which the accused may appeal for jus- 
tice. Catharine had a favorite dog whom she had named Sunderland, for an 
Englishman who had given him to her. He died suddenly, and she ordered 
him to be skinned, merely saying, " Let Sunderland be skinned." The order 
was transmitted through various mouths to the proper authorities for per- 
forming the humane act of skinning, without comment, and, when it reached 
the executioner, he supposed himself ordered to flay a man who was origi- 
nally a foreigner, but had become a Russian citizen and banker of the empress, 
and who bore the same name as her dog.* If he did not obey instantly a 
command of the empress, he might suffer the same punishment himself, and 
therefore prepared immediately the instruments for this revolting operation. 
But the poor man being an official of the empress, his title obtained for 
him a respite, and when she heard what had nearly been the consequence of 
her laconic words, she was in consternation, but only reflected upon it as an 
individual instance, and not as a certain effect of unlimited power. How 
many heads have fallen in obedience to the mandates of kings and emperors, 
who have themselves afterwards bitterly repented, and if there had been 
some restriction that prevented the immediate execution of their decrees, 
their anger would have cooled, and lives, which perhaps they valued most, 
would have been spared to them. Those who obey autocrats are automatons, 
and know that the penalty of disobedience is certain death to themselves. 

For every trifling offence beating is the punishment ; and it is quite possible 
to get beaten for no offence at all, as a poor man found to his sorrow, who 
went to the office of police with the passport of his master. When he returned 
with bitter lamentations he complained that he had received fifty blows of the 
b&ton, because the emperor, in walking, after a rain, when the streets were 
slippery, had fallen, and those whose business it was to keep the streets in 
order had failed in their duty. They had been summoned to receive their 
pnnishment at the moment when he happened to enter to get the passport 
inspected, and all who were present were beaten without inquiry as to their 
guilt. And to this injustice the master only replied, i; Very well, if you did 
not deserve it this time you will another, and so you have it in advance, which 
is perhaps the best way." There seems scarcely ever to exist the attachment 
between the lord and his serf, which is so common between the negro and 
his master, and which is at least a mitigating circumstance in a relation so full 
of evil. Utter selfishness seems to be the result in the bosom of man or 
woman who is invested with absolute control over a fellow being. Who 
would believe it possible that a woman's heart could become so hard, and the 

* A porcelain cast of this famous dog may be seen at the Johanese Palace of Dres- 
den, made at the porcelain manufactory of that city after a drawing furnished by tho 
Empress Catharine herself. 



APPENDIX. 421 

milk of human kindness so turned to gall in her bosom, or the instincts of 
virtue so sensualized and debased in her soul, as we could show by thousands 
of instances, does really happen, where she is allowed a life of selfish indulg- 
ence? We give another story in the words of the author, who witnessed it : 

"This morning, whilst I was in company with the prince, there entered 
Dimitri, the valet de chambre of the prince, and Axiana, the femme de chani- 
bre of the princess. Dimitri was born upon the lands of the prince, and had 
served in his house 25 years. His service had commenced at the age of ten, 
at first by scrubbing floors, doing errands, amd acting as postillion, When 
older he became laquais, and afterwards valet de chamtoe of the prince, and 
had for twenty years fulfilled the duties of his office with a fidelity and devo- 
tion seldom equalled. In his attachment there seemed something of the 
instinctive and submissive affection of the dog. His honesty was irreproach- 
able, owing perhaps to his almost idolatrous worship of the prince and every- 
thing that belonged to him. He entered slowly, with Axiana by his side, ex- 
hibiting his embarrassment by rubbing his cheek and hesitating how to com- 
mence his petition. Axiana was dressed as a seamstress, and with her eyes 
cast down was blushing even to her ears. 

" Dimitri approached the prince, and asked to kiss his hand ; but instead 
of otfering it, the prince, who anticipated something disagreeable, demanded 
quickly, ' Weil, what do you wish?' 

•• • Your excellency,' stammered Dimitri, ' see, I am come with Axiana, and 
if your goodness would be so great— if you have nothing against it, I would 
like to marry her.' 

" 'What! what do I hear?' 

" ' It is a long time, your excellency, that I have loved Axiana ; you know, 
your excellency, that we are from the same village — that she is a good girl. 
I have thought, I have hoped ' 

•• ' You have thought — you have hoped that I would permit you to marry ; 
simpleton that you are. There are strange people indeed in the world. 
Here is Dimitri who thinks he has but to wink, and behold, he is established 
in a household of his own. No, sir ; I shall not consent.' 

"Dimitri and Axiana did not move, and at that moment entered the 
princess. 

" ' What has happened?' asked she, seeing the prince angry, and the domes- 
tics confounded. 

"'It has happened,' said the prince, 'that this young gentleman has 
demanded the privilege of marrying this young lady.' 

" ' Marrying !' exclaimed the princess, laughing at the same time derisively ; 
• really this is curious enough. You wish to marry,' she added, looking at the 
two domestics. 

"Dimitri was abashed — Axiana blushed and trembled. 'Yes. this is fine 
indeed,' continued the princess; 'we raise these creatures, feed and clothe 
them, and train them for our service, with the greatest pains and trouble, and 
scarcely are they fit for their places, when they wish to go. Ingrates !' 

" ' But, your excellency,' said Dimitri, ' we will serve you faithfully all ouf 
lives.' 

"The prince shrugged his shoulders and muttered, 'simpleton !' 



422 APPENDIX. 

"'Serve us!' cried the princess; ' are you a fool? How could Axiana 
serve me when she has, or is having children? Do you not see if you marry 
we shall be obliged to send you into the country?' 

" ' Ah, well,' said Dimitri, ' we will go into the country and work in the 
manufactory ; you shall be satisfied with us.' 

" ' Send you away?' exclaimed the prince, ' is it for this we have brought 
you up, made you a valet de chambre, to work in a factory? Speak !' 

" The two remained silent. 

" ' You see, then, you have acted bke fools ; go ! drive marriage and all 
such folly from your heads. Think only of serving your masters, and praying 
to God ; this is much better. Go !' 

" They went out slowly and sadly. I was astounded and grieved, and said 
to the prince, 

" ' These domestics have served you a long time, faithfully?' 

" ' Yes; this knave, Dimitri, 25 years, and this girl, Axiana, 15 years.' 

" ' And tfiey have been faithful to you ?' 

" ' Zounds, they are my very best domestics ; and for this reason it is so 
base in them — for this reason their presumption exasperates me.' 

" ' On the contrary ; I should have thought this would have been a reason 
for granting their request.' 

"'What!' 

" ' Yes, I should have thought services so long and devoted, merited a re- 
ward, and I would have permitted them to marry, not only because they are 
honest and love one another, but from gratitude.' 

" The princess smiled, and said, ' this would be the way in a novel or 
romance, but we are actors in real life, and when we have a good domestic 
it is policy to keep him as long as possible.' 

" ' But you break the hearts of these poor people, and perhaps drive them 
to sin. You already complain of the immorality of your domestics. Are you 
not also guilty, if you thus force them to guilt?' 

" ' Oh, we cannot descend to argument and details, we only know we wish 
to be well served. Indeed, does Dimitri think of depriving me of my best 
femme de chambre ? We will see ; if he still persists in marrying, we will 
furnish him with a wife that we can spare better, and that will do just as well 
for him.'" 

This is the religion of a woman who professes to be governed by Christian 
principle — the morality of a woman who considers herself a model of purity. 
She is what the world calls moral, because she has had no temptation to be 
otherwise, but her code concerns only dukes and princes. What her servants 
may be she cares not as long as they serve her well. For herself she prob- 
ably made a marriage of love, but what right has a domestic to pretend to a 
heart, or even to human feeling ? As far as affection and morality are con- 
cerned he is looked upon as a brute, and for disobedience he deserves ouly 
the scourge. What must be the life of those compelled to such a cold and 
heartless servitude? How can they feel even a brute's regard for their 
masters? and not being permitted to love one another, how can there be a 
single stimulant to exertion — a single sweet in the bitter cup of life ? 

The marriage bond among serfs has none of the sacredness and permanency 



APPENDIX. 423 

that it implies among superior beings, but may be rent asunder by the master 
at his pleasure, and women in high station are so brutalized that they look 
upon the marriage covenant as a tie subject entirely to their interests and . 
caprices. We have read, in good authority, the story of a countess who, 
having been absent many years from her estates, returned to find her slaves 
had formed many marriages in her absence, and though they had been con- 
secrated with all due ceremony by priest and before the altar, she did not 
hesitate to rend them asunder, because they were not according to her ideas 
of physiological fitness. In a fury she said to the intendant, ." Is this the way 
you execute my orders? Marrying blonds with browns, and browns with 
reds? Send that fool of a priest to me ; is this the way to marry people? 
We will have this sottishness remedied." The priest came, and after a violent 
reprimand, was obliged to go to church to bind, in new links, those whom he 
had stupidly pronounced " husband and wife," and assured " God had joined 
together." The countess evidently had not become a convert to a more 
modern theory of marrying according to physiological developments ; she 
wished "blonds to be married to blonds, and browns to browns," and the 
old ties being severed, the new ones were formed according to her ideas of 
the order and fitness of things in the holy state of matrimony. 

When we come to write of German peasantry, we shall see many things 
sad to behold, but it will be a pleasant contrast to all this. But even the ser- 
vitude here, and the miserable state of those who are in bonds have in them 
nothing to excite our horror, or move our pity like the debased and brutal 
hearts of those who are lords and ladies. Surely it is better to be the tram- 
pled serf, than him who thus ruthlessly crushes the blood from human hearts, 
and looks on unmoved to see the writnings of a human soul. Who would 
take the gift of such a power, after once having seen its effect on him who 
exercises it? Who would not shudder at the thought of being transformed 
from a being of love and mercy, to a cold and heartless executioner, to whom 
blood and anguish have become pleasant things, and selfish gratification the 
one only object of interest in life ? The serf is to be pitied, but may he never 
become something a thousand times more deplorable, the unbridled master 
of another. 

In Germany we shall see poverty, but in every home, however humble, 
there will be the light of love, and where this burns bright, the darkness will 
not be all darkness. A happy family does not sink under the weight of 
poverty. There is no evil so great that love will not lighten it, no cup so 
bitter that love will not sweeten it, and though there may be now and then 
a happy household, and indissoluble links between loving hearts among 
slaves, there is ever the harrowing fear that they will be ruthlessly blighted 
and sundered, and too often the more harrowing reality of broken and bleed- 
ing heart-strings and desolation of spirit. 



424 APPENDIX. 



Appendix C. — {Page 72.) 

The remarks of the authoress upon the character and capacity of govern- 
ment officials are worthy of attention in this country. It is to be hoped that 
the time will never come when offices, in state and nation, from President 
down to fence viewer, will be held for life or for long terms. Rotation in 
office, whether brought about by the triumph and defeat of rival parties, or 
by the removal of old, and appointment of new officials, is a salutary principle 
in politics. If the public suffer much from the inexperience, ignorance, and 
venality of new men, all history proves that incapacity and corruption are 
certain evils under hereditary or life-long rulers. 

As long ago as 1821, Baron Stein, in a letter to Yon Gagern, expressed 
opinions of the government officials strikingly similar to those of the text. 

" For myself I can say nothing more about public affairs than that while I 
have little confidence in the present leaders, I have an unbounded trust in 
Providence ; and that necessary as a constitution is to Prussia, and beneficial 
as it would be, if fairly worked, I expect nothing from any machinery, which 
will necessarily be opposed by the persons who have possession of the king's 
ear, and the court influence generally : and I see plainly that we are still, as 
we have hitherto been, to be governed by salaried persons, equipped with 
mere book learning, without any substantial interest in the country, without 
property, by mere bureaucratists — a system which will last «o long as it can 
last — ' Das geht so lange es geht.' These words contain the soul of our and 
such like spiritless government machines : in the first place salaried — and 
this implies a tendency to maintain and to multiply the number of salaried 
officials ; then book-learned — that is living in the world of the dead letter and 
not in the actual world ; without interest — for these men stand in no connec- 
tion with any class of the citizens who are the mass of the state : they are a 
peculiar caste these men of the quill ; lastly, without property — this implies 
that they stand unmoved by all changes that affect property, in sunshine or 
in rain, with taxes high or low, with old chartered rights maintained or des- 
troyed, with independent peasants or a rabble of mere journeymen, with a 
dependence of the peasants on the proprietors, or of all on the Jews and the 
bankers, it is all one to the bureaucracy. They draw their salary from the 
public purse, and write — write — write on — secretly — silently — invisibly with 
shut doors — unknown — unnoticed — unnamed — and bring up their children 
after them, to be what their fathers were — very serviceable writing ma- 
chines. 

"Our machinery — the old military machinery — I saw fall on the 14th Octo- 
ber, 1806 ; possibly the machinery of the desk and the quill and the red-tape 
has a 14th of October already doomed for it in heaven." 

Words of sober truth and serious import, of which we should take heed in 



APPENDIX. 425 

this country, and never let the idea gain ground that government is a thing 
apart from the people — an instrument to rule the people — instead of a crea- 
tion of the people to manage their joint interests, and promote the general 
Welfare. 



APPENDIX D.— (Page 86.) 

Compare the remarks of the authoress, -with the folio-wing extract from 
Alison's History of Europe. Vol. ii., Chap. 48, page 586. 

" Gerard David de Scharnhorst, who was now intrusted with the military 
direction of Prussia, and whose great scientific abilities subsequently rendered 
him so distinguished in the fields of European glory, had quitted the Hanoverian 
service for that of Prussia in 1801. Taken prisoner at Liibeck, but subse- 
quently exchanged, he had powerfully contributed, by his decisive conduct 
at the critical moment with Lestocq's corps, to the brilliant result of the bat- 
tle of Eylau. In him a blameless life and amiable manners were combined 
with the purest patriotism and the soundest judgment ; exalted attainments 
were nndisfigured by pride ; vigor of thought was adorned by simplicity of 
character. The perfection of the French military organization, as well as the 
energy of their army, appeared to him in painful contrast beside the numer 
ous defects and dejected spirit of that over which he now presided ; but, in- 
stead of sinking in despair under the difficulties of his situation, he was only 
inspired by the magnitude of the evil with additional ardor in the work of 
amelioration, and induced, like Stein, to Jake advantage of the general con- 
sternation to effect several salutary reforms, which, in more tranquil times, 
might have been seriously obstructed by the prejudices of aristocratic birth 
or the suggestions of interested ambition. Boldly applying to the military 
department the admirable principles by which Stein had secured the affections 
of the burgher classes, he threw open to the whole citizens the higher grades 
of the army, from which they had hitherto been excluded, abolished the de- 
grading corporeal punishments by which the spirit of the soldier had been 
withered, and removed those invidious distinctions which, by exempting some 
classes from the burden of personal service in the army, made its weight th.ll 
with additional severity on those who were not relieved. Every department 
of the service underwent his searching eye ; in all he introduced salutary re- 
forms, rectified experienced abuses, and electrified the general spirit by open- 
ing to merit the career of promotion : while the general strength of the army 
was silently augmented to an extent which afterwards became in the highest 
degree important, by the introduction of an equally simple and efficacious 
regulation. By the subsisting engagements with Napoleon, it was provided 
that Prussia should not keep on foot more than forty-two thousand men. a 
stipulation which at once cast her down to the rank of a fourth-rate power, 



426 APPENDIX. 

and totally disabled her from assuming the attitude of resistance to the numer 
ous and hourly-increasing demands of the French armies. To elude its opera 
tion, and at the same time avoid any direct or obvious infringement of the 
treaty, he took care never to have more than the agreed on number of men 
at once in arms ; but no sooner were the young soldiers sufficiently drilled 
than they were sent home to their hearths, and other recruits called to the 
national standards, who in like manner, after a brief period of service, made 
way for others in succession. By this simple but admirable system, which is 
the true secret of the political strength and military renown of Prussia, so 
much beyond the physical resources of the monarchy, a military spirit was 
diffused through the whole population ; service in the army came to be con- 
sidered, instead of a degradation, as an agreeable recreation, after the severe 
labors of pacific life ; the manner, carriage, and intelligence of those who 
returned from their standards were so superior to those of the rustics who 
had remained at home, that no Prussian damsel would look at a youth who 
had not served his country ; the passion for arms became universal ; and while 
forty thousand only were enrolled in the regular army, two hundred thousand 
brave men were trained to arms,. and ready at a moment's warning to join 
the standards of their country. 



INDEX 



A. 

PAGE 

Lgriculture and schools.. 12*7, 141 

fairs 299 

" irrigation 142 

" products of 202 

k.mber, fishing for 378 

Angeln 51, 3*75 

ipple-bees 329 

Apprentice, starting on his 

travels 41 

Archduke John, of Austria. . . 307 

Aristocracy 60 

" hatred of America 124 
Artists 387 

B. 

Bacharach 211 

Balls 229 

Bavaria, king Louis Ill 

" misery of the people . 113 

Beets and beet sugar 245 

Betrothals 231, 338, 380 

Birthdays 318 

Births 377 

Black Lady of Altotting 345 

" Forest 281,316,321 

Boarding houses 295 

Braiding straw 290 

Bread and baking 239 

Bremen, first impressions .... 12 

" annual dinner 105 

Brickmaking 327 

Bruges, decay of 109 

Brunnen 271 

" an adventure 277 

Butter 285, 327 

C. 
Calling, etiquette of 334 



PAGH 

Carts and carriages 328 

Charlemagne .49, 190 

Chastity, want of, 90, 95, 136, 230, 

289. 

Chimney sweeps 332 

Christmas 351 

Chivalry : , 110 

Cider making 325 

Cities, cleanliness 270 

Citizenship 234 

Clocks 291 

Coblentz, city of 187 

Coffee 28 

Cologne, city of 187 

Commerce 100 

" of the Rhine 173 

Confirmation 349 

Conventionalities 20 

Costumes, 24, 46, 73, 240, 299, 321, 

367, 375, 379. 

Cottages of peasants 328 

Cows and women 286 

Crusades, influence of 99 

Curiosity 369 

Custom-house 43 

D. 

Ditmersh 52 

Divorce 317 

Domestic life, 27, 220, 228, 239, 
244, 256, 269, 295. 

Dreysam, river in Baden 282 

Dutch on the Vistula 381 

E. 

Easter in Vienna 345 

Economy 220 

Education 63, 262, 386 

Eyarstadt 52 

427 



428 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Emigration to America 389 

Emma and Eginhard, legend of 241 

Erz Mountains 372 

Etiquette 384 

F. 

Fairs and markets 131, 157 

" agricultural 299 

" humors of 15*7 

Farmhouses 147, 284 

Farms and farmers. . 129, 285, 383 
Festivals. . 226, 311, 340, 358, 384 

Feudalism 54, 74, 96, 407 

Feudal system 407 

Fine arts 17, 111 

Flax, cultivation of 154 

Food 287, 331, 374 

Frankfort, police 67 

" quarrel at a ball .. . 88 

Free cities 103 

Freiburg 282, 299 

Fruit, how to preserve 325 

Funerals 224, 376 

a" ,V 

Games 241, 319 

Game laws 242 

Garden festivals 305 

German States, lack of unity . 88 

" Yankee 287 

Germany three centuries ago . 179 

Girls, education of 265 

" sold at auction 95 

Gleaning 144 

Goar, in Rhenish Prussia 95 

Going to church 34 

Grape cure 219 

Graskonig, festival of 362 

Guilds and trades 115 

Guttenberg (art of printing) . . 183 

H. 

Hanseatic League 104 

Health and longevity 249 

Herman, steamship . . . ... ... . 11 

Higgins, Edward, Capt 11 

Himmelreich 283 

Hockheim, its vineyards 208 

Holenthal 283 

Holstein 52 



Homberg, watering place .... 44 

Housekeeping 162, 257 

" in North and 

South Germany 169 

House furniture 256 

I. 

Indian corn 238, 329 

Ingelheim, palace at Mayence. 190 

Inns 293, 322 

" for apprentices 121 

Inquisitiveness 370 

Introductory 9 

Invention 387 

Irrigation 142 

J. 

Jews 187, 213 

Johannisburg, palace of 205 

K. 
Kitchen economy 129 



Lace weavers of Saxony 372 

Land, subdivision of 266 

" taxes 267 

Language 53 

Legend of Charlemagne 190 

Leipsic, agricultural congress . 128 

Liberty 50 

Liebfrauenmilch 211 

Linen, and washing 252 

Luther, birthplace 183 

" monument to at Worms 32 

M. 

Making her luck 14 

Maria Tafel 343 

Mariazelle 343 

Marriage 231, 259, 295, 314 

" certificates 150 

" registry 150, 231 

Mayence, city of 189 

Military quarrel at a ball 88 

Military system 72, 83, 86, 424 

Miners of Saxony 372 

Morality 280, 289 

Mother, but not married 289 



INDEX. 



429 



PAGE 

Music and theatres 125 

N". 

Nassau, passports 67 

" agricultural meetings. 128 

Brunnen of. 2*71 

Xuremburg, famous for toys, 152 
213. 

0. 

Occupations 145 

Odenwald 221, 235, 250 

Office, rotation in 62 

Official life 72 

Officials 62 

Oldenburg 3*75 

p. 

Packer 145 

Palatinate 210 

Palmers 341 

Papers 263 

Passports 67 

Pastor's welcome 312 

Peasants f 54, 406 

Peasantry, love for America. . 124 

" " mode of life 133 

" morality ... 136 

" improvement of, 184, 263 
307. 
Pfingsten, or Whitsuntide 330, 384 

Pic-nic , 36 

Picture galleries 19 

Police, intermeddling 65, 69 

Politeness 228 

Postillions 281 

Prussia, liberation of the serfs 57 
" governmental control 59 
" northern 376 

R. 

Raising 312 

Rank, distinction of 16 

Religion 78, 137 

Rhine, valley of 172 

" cities of. 186 

" Gau, famous for wine. . 204 

" its commerce 173 

Roman conquest of Germany. 97 

Rotation in office 62 



PAGB 

Rowdyism 122 

Russia, serfdom in 407 

S. 

Salmon 332 

Sand and saw-dust 18 

Sauerkraut 255 

Sausages 210 

Saxony, miners and lace-weav- 
ers 372 

Scharnhorst, Baron 425 

Schleswig 52, 375 

Schools 260 

Serfs and serfdom, 54, 75, 407, 414 

Servants, complaint of 163 

Servile War 182, 208 

Sewers, want of . 270 

Shrines 341 

Silesia, its laces 152 

" famine of, 1848 303 

Silk, culture of. 202 

Smoking, scene on a steamboat 237 

Social life 368 

Soldier, derivation of word. . . 84 

Spinning circles 313 

Sport, fondness for 367 

Sprees 122 

Staring and impoliteness 19 

St. Bartholomew's day 3S4 

Stein Baron 53 

Stein, Baron von 55, 405 

Stoves, porcelain 288 

Straw braiding 290 

Stvria 307 

St. Werner 211 

Sunday pic-nic 36 

" observance of 358 

Superstitions 149, 290, 377 

T. 

Taxes 266, 292 

Tiles 327 

Titles 333 

Thrashing grain 327 

Thuringia, manners and cus- 
toms 361 

Tobacco 235 

U. 
Unity . 49 



430 



INDEX. 



PAGE 
V 

Vienna, Easter festival 345 

Village life 2*72, 311 

Village raising 312 

Vineyards ... 198, 235 

Vintage 214 

W. 

Walled towns 147 

"Watering places 44 

Washing 252 



PAGE 

Wedding customs. . . 314, 363, 380 

" trousseau 43 

Westphalia 375 

Whitsuntide 330, 347 

Windmills 286 

Wine, product of 201 

" new, effect of drinking. 218 

Winkel, its wine cellars 207 

Women, hard labor of, 41, 133, 286 

322 
Wooden utensils 329 



7BB IMP 



